CENTRE. FOR "'NEWf-OUNDLr\ t@ · STUDIES
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FROM SA CRIFIC/0 TO EGOiSMO:
GENERATION ' 75 IN URBAN GALICIA AND THE SPANISH FERTILITY RATE
by
© Amanda Lynn White
A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Department of Anthropology
Memorial University ofNewfoundland
September, 2000
St. John's, ewfoundland In dedication to Veronica. In memory of Dr. Richard Costello and my uncle Derek.
Amistad de distancia (Long distance friendship Voz grabada Recorded voice Y papel And your uprooted pages Tuyo arrancado But so alive Pero tan vivo Like my wish Como las ganas To return De volverse To see you) Aver
(Jorje Dip6lito)
11 ABSTRACT
At 1.07. the Spanish fertility rate is currently one of the lowest in the world and is depicted by politicians as constituting a public 'crisis·. The fieldwork that I conducted in Lugo (Galicia) focused on local level interpretations of the fertility decline. Draw·ing on Michael Herzfeld"s concept of--cultural intimacy.. ( 1997). I explore in the first part of the thesis. the interconnection between the state·s emphasis on the ·bettering· of the nation through an increase in population numbers, and citizens· focus on the 'bettering· of children through attentive and child-centered raising practices. In the second part of the thesis. I examine the interrelation between socioeconomic changes and shifts in gender ideologies as these relate to what people frequently told me is a main reason for the decline: that young women are behaving in a ·masculine· way by displaying egoismo (selfishness or self-centeredness). I look at how young people talk about the links between notions of gender difference and the ·tow' fertility rate. l follo\v a post structuralist approach in my analysis ofthe cultural construction of·being selfish· which moves beyond previous research on gender in southern Europe. Moreover. I focus particularly on how y·oung women experience the public criticisms of their femininity and I ask how this relates to their sense of identity and notions of motherhood. In addition to previous anthropological work on demographic patterns and the body-politic. the analysis--through the employment of Herzfeld· s ··social poetics'· ( 1985 and 1997)--of the interplay between the ambiguous relationship of everyday practices. performances. and discourses adds context to Spain"s ·'fertility puzzle·· and people"s interpretations of it.
Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been blessed \Vith so many wonderful teachers and friends throughout my journey in anthropology. Without the teachings of Paul Morrissy who had the patience to see me through my undergraduate thesis. Richard Costello· s kind yet forthright advice about the field of anthropolog,y, and Wayne Fife's guidance during my last undergraduate year at St. Thomas University. I would probably not have sought to pursue further study in cultural anthropology. It \Vas Paul who first sought my help with the activity of marking exams. His trust in my abilities gave me the confidence \Vhich I needed to seriously entertain ideas about furthering my academic studies in anthropology. During Richard·s and my conversations about issues in anthropology and about life in general. and through his own example, I found within myself the confidence to come out from under my shell and express my ideas and arguments. Through Richard's courses. I learned about the value of pursuinJ an idea which would have the potential to develop into something tangible with thorough and rigorous work. Because of Wayne. I took the final step and made the decision to continue studies in anthropology. I cannot thank Paul. Richard. and Wayne enough for their help throughout the years. As luck would have it. during my two years at Memorial University of Nev.foundland. I received further sound guidance and encouragement from the faculty members in its department of anthropology. Rex Clark, for example, showed me ho\v to narrovv my interests down to one topic and with his help, I learned about constructive criticism. Louis Chiaramonte showed me the importance of getting to really know oneself and its role in research. Robert Paine taught me about how to debate issues in a seminar format and he opened my eyes to the importance of thoroughly developing one·s ideas. I am also grateful to Mark Tate for his advice about teaching and about the process invoh·ed in writing a thesis. His compassion during difficult times helped me to recognise that bumps are a part of the journey. Jean Briggs. Tom Nemec. and Elliott Leyton·s pleasant and invigorating discussions about their o\vn interests were welcoming parts of the overall friendly environment at MUN. In addition to my expressions of appreciation to these teachers. I further vvant to thank Marilyn Marshall. the Department's secretary. and the other graduate students for their help, friendship. and insights. Warm thanks and gratitude goes to Sharon Roseman. She kne\v ho\v far to push me in my research pursuits and when to stop. how far to give me direction and w·hen to let me learn things on my own. I could not have asked for a better mentor and thesis supervisor. Not only did Sharon share her ovvn experiences of fieldwork in Galicia with me. she also allowed me to conduct my own research in Galicia, under her SSHRC grant. Through her own example as an academic who is sensitive to the needs of others. she has instilled in me a sense of ethical consideration which transcends the guidelines for ethics in anthropology. Sharon taught me about writing. about teaching, about field\\·ork. about
IV doing research: ultimately. she has inspired me to do more for both people and the field of anthropology. I \vant to thank my parents for their continual emotional and financial assistance throughout the years. Through my mother. I am learning about the importance of aligning my soul with my personality and this process is invariably expressed in some of the contents in this thesis. My father's mere presence inspires me to reach for my higher self. I also thank my sister for her lessons about life which she has taught me along the \vay. To my friends in New Brunswick. I thank them for their continual support and advice over the years (''J"ai right hiite de \'OUS VOir et d 'etre avec VOliS Cllllres COllmme Cll'CIJ1('). [ want to thank Andre Rossiter for his gift of friendship. love, and understanding throughout the years. I am also grateful for Amanda (Aimee) Eisener's academic insights and for her nurturing friendship during our growing pains at MUN. This thesis would not have been written had it not been for the help of the many people who befriended me and who assisted me in my research in Lugo. Galicia. I am very thankful to Susana de Ia Gala and Tofio for their hospitality and concern for me and my research during my tieldwork. Moreover. I am in gratitude to the many people in Lugo for their permission to conduct research with them and for their insights on my topic of inquiry. Through them, I learned about the value of feeling with one's heart and thinking less with one's head. I want to especially thank Veronica Corral Sesar for her friendship and I thank her for having shared her kno\vledge \Vith me. [can only hope that the people whom I got to know well while in Lugo are not disappointed \Vith my attempt in this thesis at balancing bet\veen el corccon and Ia cabe:::a. Of course. although I have received help throughout the research and the writing process of this thesis. ultimately all the arguments presented throughout the chapters are my own.
\' LIST OF MAIN PARTICIPANTS IN RESEARCH
Alba: A 26 year old undergraduate forestry student whom I got to kno\v well w·hile living in one of the university"s residences. She has three younger siblings.
Antonia: A 24 year old female graduate student from the city ofLugo. Through her. I 'vvas introduced to members of her pandilla (group of friends).
Carlos: A 36 year old restaurant owner. He has been with the same woman for eighteen years and does not plan to marry or have any children.
Carmen: A 24 year old female graduate student w·hom I lived vvith in an apartment durinQ:- half of mv.. fieldw·ork in the citv.. of LuQ:o.- She is the eldest of two children. I make frequent reference to Carmen throughout this thesis.
Delia: An ama de casa (stay-at-home mother) with three children in their early and mid twenties.
Enrique: A 24 year old man from the city of Lugo. He is a member of Antonia· s pandilfa. He has been in a long term relationship and rarely brings his girlfriend out with the pandilla.
Fatima: A university student with whom r lived in the city of Lugo. She is Carmen ·s younger sister. She has a boyfriend whom I also introduce in this thesis.
Julio: He is from the same industrial tovm as Carmen and his girlfriend, Fatima. He has been in a romantic relationship with Fatima for approximately one y·ear. They are both in their early twenties.
Lucia: A close friend ofFatima·s. She is from the same industrial town in the province of A Corufia as Carmen and Fatima.
Maria: She and her husband own a business together in the city of Lugo. She has lived in the city of Lugo all of her life. She has a five year old son and is in her mid thirties. Her mother lives with her and her family.
Mirta: A 39 year old cook and mother of four children. Her children are in their late teens and early twenties.
VI Olvida: A female cleaner in her late forties. She is married to afuncionario (government employee). She has a 22 year old son.
Pedro: A veterinarian in his early thirties. He has been with the same woman for fifteen years and does not plan to marry her in the near future. He does not want to have children with his partner.
Roberto: A 27 year old recent university graduate. He is looking for professional employment.
Sofia: Carmen and Fatima's mother. She is an ama de casa in her forties. She has been divorced from their father since the mid 1980s. She remains in the industrial town in which she raised her daughters.
*All of the names of individuals have been changed in order to protect their identity. Some of the participants' names are not included in this list because I only make brief reference to them in the thesis.
Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication and Poem II
Abstract lll
Acknowledgments IV
List of Main Participants VI
Table of Contents Vlll
Maps Xlll
Chapter One: Introduction
Socioeconomic Changes in Galicia since the 1960s 4
Changes in Life Cycle Transition Patterns 8
Setting 9
"El Pueblo Grande: The City ofLugo" 14
"Decir la Mural/a es Decir Lugo: To Say the ' Wall ' is to Say Lugo 15
"La Ciudad del Sacramento: The City of the Sacrament" 17
The Spatial Organisation of the City 17
Methodology 18
Outline of Thesis Structure and Chapters 25
Chapter Two: Towards an Analytical Approach to Spain s "Fertility Puzzle" 30
Vlll Spain' s "Fertility Puzzle" 32
Micro-Demography: An Institutional Demographic Approach 37
Practice, Discourse, and Power 39
On Herzfeld' s Cultural Intimacy 41
On Herzfeld' s Social Poetics 43
On Strategic Essentialism 45
On Gender Difference 47
Post-Structuralism and Gender in Anthropology 50
Conclusions 53
Part I: The Display of Cultural Intimacy 55
Chapter Three: Institutional Discourses on Fertility 56
Historical Overview of Church and State Concerns about Reproductive Patterns 58
Anthropological Approaches to the Study ofNatalism 62
Pronatalist Policies in Spain under Franco (193 9-197 5) 65
Galicia' s Low Fertility Rate and Ageing Population 69
Assistance for Familias Numerosas (Large Families) 72
Maternity and Parental Leaves 73
Day Care facilities in Galicia 74
Contraceptive Use 75
lX Newspaper Depictions of the Crisis Demogrcifica in Galician Newspapers 79
Local Interpretations of the Role of the Government 81
The Galician Government Position on the Fertility Rate 82
Conclusions 84
Chapter Four: Notions of Child-Rearing and Parenthood 86
Shifts in Parent-Child Relations 89
Parents' notions of Child-Rearing 92
The Psychologisation of Parenting 96
The Mother-Child Bond 98
Conflicts between Professional Employment and Motherhood 101
Youth Perceptions of Parenthood 105
Young Single Women and the Interplay between Responsabilidad and Libertad 107 Young Single Men and the Interplay between Responsabilidad and Libertad 109 On Young Women's Interpretations of Motherhood 112
The Interplay between the State and the People 115
Conclusions 118
Part II: The Intemlay betweenlnestabilidad and Estabilidad 119
Chapter Five: El Egoismo and Meeting Social Obligations 120
El Egoismo 123
X "Soy Egoista" 127
On Egoismo and Women 129
Turning to the Family for Estabilidad 132
Beyond Essentialism about the Urban Family 137
Grown Children's Relationship with their Parents 139
Experiences of Family Obligations and Displays of Loyalty 141
Sibling Relationships 143
Towards an Understanding of People's Criticism of Young People's Behaviours 145
Conclusions 147
Chapter Six: Generation '75 Experiences of Economic Inestabilidad 149
Being a Student is the "Best Time" of One's Life "(Es lo Mejor)" 151
The Importance of a Formal Education and Competitive Examinations 153
Public Knowledge of Performances on the Exams 160
"Bus car el trabajo es facil pero encontrarlo es una otra cos a Looking for work is easy but finding it is another matter)'' 161
Adaptive Strategies 163
"Asi es Ia vida (Such is life)" 167
Conclusions 169
Chapter Seven: Courting Practices and Femininity in Generation '75 172
XI Ir de Copas (Going Out For Drinks) 173
Preparing for a Night Out With Friends 176
Following la Red Social 178
To Ligar with Someone for a Brief Period or for the Night 181
Romantic Inestabilidad 184
Social Evaluations of Young Female Behaviour 187
Female Negative Evaluation of Young Female Behaviour 189 Male Negative Evaluation of Female Behaviour 190 Power between Women and Men 193
The Social Construction and Evaluations of the Ideal Female Body 196
Working towards Notions of Femininity 201
Conclusions 205
Conclusions: Revisiting the Spanish "Fertility Puzzle" 208
References Cited 216
Newspapers Cited 216 Secondary Sources 220
Xll LIST OF MAPS
Map 1 .1 Map of Spain and Portugal showing location of Galicia 11
Map 1.2 Map of Galicia showing four provinces and location of the city of Lugo 12
Xlll Chapter One: Introduction
At 1.07. the total fertility rate (TFR)1 for Spain is currently one of the lowest in
the w-orld (The Globe and Mail. March 2, 2000: A 12). In a recent article in a Canadian
national newspaper. a journalist. Daniel Woolis. \\.Tote that "sociologists blame the
[Spanish) birth-rate decline on everything from economics, such as a 15-per-centjobless
rate, low salaries and housing unaffordable for young couples. to cultural factors like men
who don't do diapers"(The Globe and Mail. March 2, 2000: A12). Although Spain·s birth rate and reproductive patterns in general have increasingly become of Spanish and even international public interest, fertility rates have been steadily declining in Spain since the end of the nineteenth centurj. However, after the transition to democracy in 1975. it is also true that rates have plunged dramatically "by exactly 50% from 2.78 children per woman in 1978 to 1.39 children in 1989" (Delgado Perez and Livi-Bacci 1992: 164).
Based on participant-observation tield\vork conducted during the summer of 1999
1The TFR is calculated by multiplying the average number of children per group of women between the ages of 15 and 50 within a geographical area (Coale and Watkins 1979:3 ).
~ Since the 1860s. fertility rates have been declining in Spain and in Galicia. For a history of fenility patterns in Spain and in Galicia since the end of the 19th century, see, for example, Bertrand ( 1992); Leasure ( 1963 ); Livi Bacci ( 1968); and Reher and Iriso Napal ( 1989). Geographer Jean-Rene Bertrand for instance notes that since 1910, Galician fenility rates have been between 10 per cent to 12 per cent lower than Spain's (Bertrand 1992: I 01 ). Also see Schneider and Schneider (I 995) and ( 1996) for their approach to understanding the reasons for fertility decline in a small village in Sicily. 3 in the city of Lugo (Galicia) , and with a focus on inhabitants· everyday practices and
discourses on gender. parenting. romance, education, and work. I explore in this thesis
local experiences of Spain's socioeconomic shifts as these relate to Spain"s ·[ow· fertility
rate. With a focus on the "social poetics" (Herzfeld 1985 and 1997) of everyday living,
my goal is to come to a better understanding ofthe interplay betw·een official and "local'
interests in fertility patterns. How do, for example. both governments and citizens explain
why Galician and Spanish fertility rates are 'low'?
I argue that local notions of child-rearing and parenting are intimately connected to state and national discourses on the importance of reproducing a ' good' population.
Moreover. the unstable nature of inhabitants· notions of gender difference and the connection of these to the 'low' fertility rate contextualizes current changing gender practices. A focus on urban familial and friendship emotional bonds points to the importance of social obligations and their relation to notions of child-rearing and parenting. In addition, following Michael Herzfeld (1985 and 1997), I demonstrate that people frequently use essentialist language when talking about matters such as gender difference and the fertility rate but that this language contrasts with the complexity of everyday interactions. At the core of this thesis is the interplay bet\.veen how people talk
3 I chose to conduct fieldwork in the city of Lugo for personal and practical reasons. I felt that I would be able to adapt more easily in a relatively small city like Lugo with its approximately 78 000 inhabitants. I was also able to tum to one of my supervisor's friends, anthropologist Susana de Ia Gala, for advice during fieldwork because she lives in the city of Lugo.
2 about gender and the fertility rate and how people display their social identities.
The majority of my main informants are members of Generation •75_ having been
born either in 1974. 1975 or 1976. These individuals identified strongly with the significance of the year of their birth and told me that the year in which they vvere born. during the democratic transition, \Vas the best time (lo mejor) for Spain. When referring to the transition to democracy in Spain, most inhabitants of the Galician city of Lugo characterised the changes as having involved a sudden, strong social shift (un golpe).
This thesis is primarily a description of the processes through which Generation
·75 university women are displaying their ·ordinariness'. \Vhile experiencing tensions betvveen seemingly conflicting messages about gender identities in the post-Franco context. I explore yOLmg female university students' experiences of the tension bet·ween meeting social obligations and thinking for oneself as these relate to the fettility rate. This thesis is therefore less about socioeconomic changes and hov.. · in turn these inscribe themselves on members of Generation ·75, as it is concerned with the description ofthe remaking of identities (after Abu-Lughod 1998) within the context of socioeconomic changes. I am interested in how young women in particular experience. negotiate, and play out their self-identities in the context of widely held notions of gender difference, femininity. parenting. and motherhood. I show how individuals' views of Spain's and
Galicia's ·lm\·· fertility rates have to be understood in light of these dominant discourses and people· s everyday practices. Socioeconomic Chanees in Galicia since the 1960s
Although there have been numerous socioeconomic changes in the post-Franco
period. here I briefly outline changes very relevant to my thesis such as the increasing
urbanization. recent employment patterns, education patterns. religiosity and divorce
rates. Social historian Adrian Shubert \VTites that ·'from 1960 to 1974 the economy [in
Spain] grew at an unprecedented rate, an average of 6.6 per cent overalL 9.4 per cent in
the industrial sector.. (Shubert 1990: 207). Indeed. the 1960s are deemed the
··Iiberalisation·· period. the ·'boom·· period or the Spanish "'miracle·· (Ibid.: Gulevich
1995: and Jordan 1995). Hovvever, as anthropologist Tanya Gulevich remarks, •·Galicia
entered this boom period under different conditions than did most of the rest of the country'" (Gulevich 1995: 56). And although in the 1960s '·Galician society and economy
was dominated by small-scale agriculturalists oriented towards self-sufficient economic
production·· ( fbid.) since the 1980s, the majority of employment opportunities for
Galicians have been in the tertiary sector. "The service sector surpassed the primary sector as the number one employer of Galicians in 1989" (Institute Gal ego de Estadistica
([GE) 1990: 53. cited in Gulevich 1995: 68). In the last decade. Galicia has gone from having 408.000 people in the agrarian sector in 1988 to 181,000 people in 1998 (IGE
4 1998, cited in La Voz de Galicia, July 15, 1999: 77) • According to recent statistics
4 The statistics sourced in Galicia's regional newspapers and by scholars such as Tanya Gulevich ( 1995) and Jean-Rene Bertrand ( 1992) are from either the fnstituto Naciona! de Eswdistica (INE, the National Institute of Statistics) or the Instituto Galego de Estadistica (IGE. the Galician Institute of Statistics). I use the acronyms INE and IGE
4 published by Infoempleo, based on over 150,000 registered employment postings in Spain
between April of 1998 to April of 1999. the most sought after university graduates are
those with technical degrees such as engineering (/njoemplea. cited in La Voz de Galicia.
July 4, 1999: l 0). Th~ telecommunications, industrial. construction, and service sectors
employ approximately 28 per cent of Galicians (Ibid.). The information sector is said to
be ·'booming"" in Galician and this growth is symbolised by the opening of more cyber
cafes (ciberlocales) (El ProQreso. July 5, I 999: 6).
While Galicia has been characterised by Gulevich as having had until the I 980s a
"dispersed. rural population. [w·ith a] high percentage of the population occupied [in]
relatively unproductive labor in the primary sector, and persistent emigration and poverty'" (Gulevich 1995: 63), it is estimated that with the continuing urbanization occurring in Spain and in Galicia in particular. that by 20 I 0, 66 per cent of Galicians will be residing in semi-urban and urban areas (INE 1999, cited in La Voz de Galicia, June 20,
5 1999: 12) • Many Galicians emigrate to the region's seven major cities for employment; these cities being A Coruiia, Santiago de Compostela, Ourense. Lugo, Pontevedra, Vigo, and Ferro!. Hov,:ever. according to the statistics gathered by the Anuario Eswdfstico l'v!ercado lnmohiliario Espana/ (Annual Statistics for the Spanish Housing Market), based
throughout the remainder of this thesis.
5 See Roseman ( 1993) for a description of worker peasant society in rural Galicia and Kelley ( 1991) for a description of emigration practices among Galicians in the twentieth century.
5 on the average income and the average going price of flats and houses (viviendas),
Galicians have to wait an average of five years and eight months before purchasing their
homes (El Correo Galle~w . June 19, 1999: 20). Indeed, the cost of housing in the city of
Lugo \Vent up by 7 per cent in 1998 (La Voz de Galicia. June 27, 1999: 43).
Spain currently has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. In
1999. Spain·s unemployment rate \Vas 9.5 percent and Galicia's \vas 11.46 percent (INE.
cited in La Voz de Galicia, August 4, 1999: 60). Moreover, the unemployment rate
among Galicians under the age of 25 \vas 18.81 per cent of the total number of active
Galicians of which 9.559 were young men and 16,945 were young women (IGE, cited in
El Pro2:reso, June 19. 1999: 36).
In addition to these socioeconomic conditions and in addition to shifts in fertility rates which I discuss in Chapter Three. other family patterns have also dramatically changed. For example. the divorce rate for Spain went from 9.483 cases in 1981 to
6 42,993 in 1997 (Alberdi 1999:193 ) . And w·hile the Catholic Church and the State were allies during the Franco Regime ( 1939- 1975), the young people \vhom I knew in the city
7 of Lugo did not regularly attend Catholic mass • Although the many Catholic saints were sometimes mentioned in conversations about. for example, festivals and Saint-Days,
6 Divorce became legal in Spain again in 1981. [t \Vas during the 2"d Republic which was established in 1931 that it was first legalised. Suffrage and abortion were also permissible in Catalonia during this same time period (Nash 1991 : 161-162).
7 For a brief review ofthe position of the Catholic Church during both the Franco period and in the post-Franco period, see, for example. Shubert ( 1990: 233-245).
6 religious doctrine as such was not a topic of discussion.
Since the mid 1970s. other socioeconomic changes in Spain have included an increased proportion of people receiving formal education. In Galicia. for example. 46.6 per cent of the population currently has a post-secondary education or formal training
(IGE. cited in El Proereso. August 5, 1999: 30). In 1989. there were 52.833 students enrolled in Ga!ician universities located in A Corufia. Santiago de Composte!a. Vigo.
Ferro!. Pontevedra. and a small university campus in Lugo which is affiliated with the larger university in A Comfia (La Voz de Galicia. July 18. 1999: 12). This number nearly doubled by 1999 with a student population of98,528 in these universities (Ibid.). The majority of Galician university students are female. representing 57 per cent of the universities· student population (IGE 1998: 33). Despite high female university enrollment 63 per cent of the total number of unemployed Galicians are women (IGE
1998: 40). The young women who participated in my research were attending university in the city of Lugo. \vith the hope of attaining professional employment following graduation. Because of the current high unemployment rate for both women and men, many also worried about the difficulties involved in finding stable employment and I discuss this in more detail in Chapter Six.
7 Chan£res in Life Cvcle Transition Patterns
Young people remain economically dependent on their parents for a long period
8 of time because of the high unemployment rate. expense and shortage of housing • and
length of the time spent completing one·s education. This is common in the city of Lugo
9 and the other major cities of Galicia . In general. adulthood \vas once achie\·ed through
10 marriage or parenthood : "A woman is a woman from the moment she manifests her
procreative potential: the man is a man from the moment he carries out his procreative
capacity" (Frigole Reixach 1995: 33). However, in pan, I follow sociologist Teresa
Castro Martfn ( 1990 and 1992) in which she argues that as an outcome of socioeconomic and political changes in Spain, marriage and the shift to parenthood have been delayed
(also see Collier 1997). In tum, I argue that as a result of the above described socioeconomic conditions in Galicia. ·adulthood· for young \Vomen and men in places such as the city of Lugo is not only associated with their relationships to members of the opposite sex. Now. the achievement of 'adulthood· and ·maturity· is closely linked to a person's occupational status and to her or his public display of el equilibria (balance) and
8 Although a housing shortage exists in the major cities of Spain and in Galicia, finding an apartment was not problematic for the students with whom I lived during fieldwork. Many young people from Lugo itself, did, however, still live with their parents.
4 For an overview of social change and youth in Europe see for example papers in Cavalli and Galland ( 1995). In relation to changes in the lite cycle patterns. see especially Chapter Two ""Prolonging Youth in Italy: ·Being in no hurry" " (Cavalli 1995: 2 1-32).
10 Men, however, also achieved the status of adulthood through wage employment.
8 Ia responsahilidad (responsibility). That is. current experiences of socioeconomic
inestahi/idad (instability). which is marked by few good employment opportunities. are
linked to current shifts in life cycle transitions. Instead of taking the position that the
transition to adulthood is delayed, I argue that the overall pattern of life cycle
development has changed and this change is intimately related to shifts in the meaning of
adulthood and ho\v a person becomes an adult. What is of interest then. and I discuss this
in Chapter Six. is how young informants experience the hardships involved in obtaining eltrabajo jijo (stable \VOrk) in the larger context of economic inestabilidad.
Setting
Galicia is located in the extreme northwest of Spain (see Map 1.1 ). The region covers some 29.434 square kilometres (Lis6n Tolosana 1973) and contains approximately
2.8 million inhabitants (Xunta.es 1999). Divided into four provinces--Pontevedra,
Ourense. A Coruiia. and Lugo (see Map 1.2)--Galicia has had the official status of being a
Comunidad Auu)noma (Autonomous Community) since October of 1981 (Donaghy and
11 Ne\\-ton 1987) •
The Xunta de Galicia. the regional parliament and government administration.
\Vas officially recognised on April 6. 1981 . Galicia's capital is the city of Santiago de
Compostela, which is located in the province of A Corufia. Furthermore, "Galicians
11 For more information on the transition to democracy in Spain see, for example, Carr and Fusi ( 1979): Crow (1985); Donaghy and Newton (1987); Perez-Diaz (1993); and Shubert ( 1990).
9 speak a regional language, Gallego, which is closely related to present-day Castilian.
Catalan. French, Italian. Proven<;al. and Portuguese. with which it shares a common root in medieval Galego-portugues" (Roseman 1995: 5).
Although Galicia has officially been recognised as a distinct cultural and political region since 1981. Galicians themselves have long since asserted their uniqueness
(Roseman 1995). Indeed, even during the Second Republic ( 1930s) '·Galicians voted ovenvhelmingly for political autonomy and an official status for their language'·
(Roseman 1995: 4 ). However as Roseman continues, ··the Spanish Civil \Var (1936-39) and the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco ( 1939-75) interrupted the movement toward autonomy that had gained momentum not only in Galicia but also in other parts of Spain"
(Ibid.).
As Spanish anthropologist Lourdes Mendez (1988: 4 7) points out, of the four
Galician provinces. Lugo has had the highest proportion of people living in rural settlements (Mendez 1988: 47). This pattern has continued since the time period of
Mendez's research in Lugo. Lugo's agricultural and fishing sectors accounted for 40.2% of the province·s economic activity in 1997. In contrast. in the same year these two sectors are calculated to have comprised 18.3% of Galicia's economy versus only 8.2% for Spain as a vvhole (IGE 1998).
10 C&Uci& I
Map 1. Map of Spain and Portugal •howfng location of Gaftcla (adapted from Donaghy and Newton 1N7:i .,d reproduc.d from Sharon Roseman 163:31)
11 ProYinc:t of Pro• iDe• A ecru&------of Luto
Province of Pontevedra
Province --· of Ourenae
M•p 2. Map of Gallela lhowtng location of Lugo (adapted from Sharon Roseman 1193)
12 This dominance of agriculture in Lmw and in Galicia as a whole is said bv ~ ~ .
anthropologists such as Mendez (1988) to have contributed to the high percentage of
Galician \Vomen reported to be economically ·active': '·While in the Spanish State the
percentage of women who are employed is 28.1 %. in Galicia it is 42.9%" (Mendez 1988:
49, translation my ovvn). The percentage of women employed in the province of Lugo vvas 5 I .4%. the highest rate in Galicia (IGE 1998). The province of Lugo has an important fanning and cattle-raising industry and the capital city serves as an administrative and commercial centre (Freire 1997). The service sector makes up 36.7% of the city· s economy (IGE 1998).
The province ofLugo extends some 9.856 square kilometres, almost a third of the total surface of the Comunidad Autonoma (Lamela Viera 1998: 20). It is geographically the largest of the four provinces and the least populated with approximately 382.000 inhabitants (Ibid.). In I 991, the province only accounted for 14 percent of the total population of Galicia (Ibid.): ··Ofthe 66 municipalities ofthe province. 59 have decreased in population since 198 I" (Lame Ia Viera 1998: 21. translation my own). The only municipalities that have gradually been growing are Cervo. with a population of 12,750 inhabitants. and the municipality ofLugo presently comprising 83 ,242 inhabitants (Ibid.).
Of the total number of inhabitants in the municipality of Lugo, 78,326 or 89 per cent live in the city of Lugo (Lamela Viera 1998: 22; Freire 1997, lugo.htm).
13 .. £! Puehlo Grande: The CitvofLu!!o·'
As anthropologists Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson note on place:
Rather than begin vvith the premise that localit~y and community are obvious, that their recognition and affective power flow automatically out ofdirect sensory experience and face-to-face encounters, our contributors [in the same volume] argue that the apparently immediate experience of community is in fact inevitably constituted by a \.Vider set of social and spatial relations (Gupta and Ferguson 1997: 7).
It is for this reason that. throughout this thesis. I draw upon Spanish anthropologist Marfa del Carmen Lamela Viera's ( 1998) sociocultural ethnographic work on the city of Luge and inhabitants· daily practices and discourses about the city and surrounding villages.
Although inhabitants talked about rural and urban ditferences using essentialising language--specifically referring to the distinct characteristics of people who live in urban and rural areas--what vve see is that there is a long history in Galicia of rural and urban socioeconomic exchanges. In Gulevich' s ( 1995) research in the city of Ourense, she explores these changes in great detail and writes that people' s differentiation between the rural and the urban underlies ways in which they cope with social changes. The rural and urban links are particularly manifested in Lugo because of the province·s economic reliance on the primary sector.
Inhabitants· reference to the city ofLugo as '·ef pueblo grande (the large town)" illustrates the connection between the province's rural areas and the city, further demonstrated through forms of exchanges and services (see Lamela Viera 1998,
14 especially Chapter Four). Lamela Viera continues that '· On the one hand. Lugo is the capital of a province which is not very developed. and on the other hand. it is a city \Vhich is only an hour and a half. by way of the highway, from A Corufia, the regional metropolis of Galicia·· (Lamela Viera 1998: 23. translation my own). The city of Lugo is, however. also growing. During the summer of 1999. there was a tremendous amount of constmction occun·in2: in the citv of LU!W and inhabitants often commented that the citv - .. - "" was being built up ··todo se leventa (all is being raised)". Indeed in the province·s newspaper, El Progreso, a supplement \vas regularly included on the '"Reforma
Urbanistica (Urban Reform)" .
.. Decir Ia .'v!uralla es Decir Lugo: To Sav the 'Wall' is to Sav LU!w··
The city of Lugo \Vas founded in 15 B.C. by Paula Fabio Maximo. a legate of the
Emperor Augustus. One of Lugo's dominant physical features is a defensive stone wall
(Ia mural/a romana). initially built by the Romans in the third century A .D. ft currently has a perimeter of 2.120 kilometres and numerous round turrets. La muralla encircles the city centre and the area enclosed by the wall occupies approximately 28 hectares of the total surface of the city. There is a path that mns along the top of Ia muralla which inhabitants use for recreational activities. fn spite of later restorations, Ia muralla is the best example of a walled enclosure from Roman times in Spain (Lamela Viera 1998:
Xunta de Galicia tourist pamphlet n.d.).
Lamela Viera states that it would be false to assume that Ia nwralla acts as a
15 barrier betvveen the city centre and surrounding areas. Instead. she suggests that Ia
muralla serves as a view-point or lookout ('"mirador") over the entire city which sits
approximately 100 metres above the rio ,\lifto (Miiio river). I often walked or ran \vith
friends along Ia muralla·s well- maintained path while observing the activities both
inside and outside its perimeter.
In February of 1999, local government officials decided that they would make an
attempt to get Ia mura!!a nominated for UNESCO' s designation: Patrimonio de !a
Hwnanidad (World Heritage Site). Coupled with its symbolic representation. Ia muralla
is a tourist attraction and government officials estimated that tv,;o thousand tourists visited
the city and its wall during the first four months of 1999 (La Voz de Lugo. May 23 1999:
43). As elsewhere in Galicia. the officials of Luge are also attempting to expand its
12 tourism service industry •
La muralla presently has ten open puerras (entrances): Puerta A4ina, Puerta del
Posligu o Pexigo, Puerw del Bispo Aguirre. Puerta del Bispo f:zquierdo. Puer!a
Toledana. Puerta de !a Estacion, Puerta Fa/sa. Puerta de San Fernando, Puerta Nueva and Puerta del Bispo Odoario. When I would ask for directions while in the downtown area of the citv of Lugo. most often. inhabitants offered me guidance bv directing me ., - - ., ...... according to Ia murafla·s puertas.
12 See Roseman (forthcoming a) for a discussion of pilgrimage and tourism in Santiago de Compostela as an example of the expansion of the tourist industry in Galicia.
16 .. La Ciudad del Sacramento: The Citv of the Sacrament"
After Ia muralla romana, the cathedral de Santa Maria is also a historical
monument closely identified with the city of Lugo (Lamela Viera 1998: 30). The
cathedral was built betvveen 1129 and 1273 with continual restorations thereafter. A
statue of the female patron saint, La r/irgen de los Ojos Grandes 13 is found in the
Cathedral along with several other religious figures. In July of 1999. new· restorations
were begun on the cathedral. Although the young people whom I knew recognized the
religious and historical significance of the city, many would often question why I would
conduct research in such "a boring (aburrida)'· city which was mostly, in their opinion,
populated by ··old people (la genie vieja)".
The Spatial Omanisation ofthe Citv
The area enclosed by Ia murafla romana includes a variety of stores. cafes, government buildings. and churches. When I heard people refer to what can be translated as .. going do\mtown··. they would say ··}vfe voy en Lugo .. or ·'/vie voy a Lugo ... meaning
·Tm going to the city centre" which is the area inside Ia muralla romana. A great deal of socializing takes place within the city centre. For example, I often heard students say that they vvere going downtown .. to go shopping (hacer fa compra) •·. In addition, Ia calle de
l} The patron saint of the city is San Froilcin. The celebration of San Froilan includes most of the districts in the city of Lugo whereas other celebrations such as Semana Santa (Easter Holy week), Corpus Christi, San Juan. and additional summer festivals occur within specific barrios (districts). Furthermore. because it is one of the few festivals celebrated in October. a great number of Galicians come to Lugo to partake in the festivity of San Froilan from October 4-12.
17 vinos, the street where the majority of people go to socialize and drink in the bars and
pubs is located parallel to the city's cathedraL
Lugo also has seYeral districts (barrios) and they each have their own history. In
the recent past, many people lived in the numerous houses that were attached to Ia
mural/a. Currently more inhabitants live outside Ia mural/a. One of the newest
developing areas is the university area (barrio Fingoi) where the facilities support some
1 1,000 students. This university campus, considered to be a smali one in Spain. is part of
the University of Santiago de Compostela, \Vhich celebrated its 500111 anniversary in 1995.
Methodolo!!v
Over the course of three months of fieldwork, I gathered data primarily through
three methods: participant-observation that included numerous conversations with
varying groups of people. private interviews, and the collection of newspaper articles on
the fertility rate and on related themes. [also collected information on various government policies, including material on family planning. Because this thesis mainly
focuses on the everyday· experiences and discourse of Generation ·75. I refer extensively to my daily participant-observation and intervie\.VS with members of this cohort throughout the thesis.
I conducted private interviews with 20 people who ranged in age, gender, profession, and points in their life cycle. For example, some informants were married with children such as Maria and Olvida; some inforn1ants \.Vere civil servants such as
18 Sonia. while others were small business owners such as Carlos. Some informants were
divorced such as Sotla: others were in a relationship but not married such as Enrique and
Fatima: and others were single such as Antonia and Alba (see pages vi and vii for a list of
the main participants referred to in this thesis). Along with private interviews, I also draw
upon my interviev.rs with two Catholic priests in order to provide the context of their
opinions about the fertility rate and the 'family' in urban Galicia. The interviews that I
conducted with these twenty individuals vvere very valuable: however, as I indicate
above, equally valuable were the numerous informal conversations in which I
participated. Moreover. although I interviewed individuals of various ages, the vast
majority of my participant-observation was carried out vvith members of the ·Generation
"75' age cohort.
I lived in Xeszis Bale Gal. one of Lugo ·s university coeducational residences. for
the first half of my fieldwork. After having been in Lugo for about a month, Carmen, a graduate student. explained to me that she would be staying in Lugo for the summer as she had obtained a job at a private teaching academy and she inquired about \vhether I wanted to live with her, her younger sister and their friends. At the time, Carmen was living with five other students in a six bedroom apartment. I knew that I would need to move out of residence because students were going home for the summer after final exams and I thought about how lucky I was that Carmen asked me to live with her. I later moved in with Carmen and five other female students off campus in an apartment. Nine
19 days later. I moved into a four bedroom apartment with four university students: Carmen.
her younger sister Fatima, Fatima's friend. Lucia, and Fatima's boyfriend. Julio. I lived in
this off campus apartment for the remainder of my fieldw·ork.
Although I was living in an urban context. I found that I could not delimit the
setting of my research to the city itself. [ndeed. many people I talked with were not
necessarily from the city of Lugo but had migrated there for work or formal schooling. In
Lamela Viera's recent ethnography ( 1998) about the city of Lugo. she mentions that it is
difficult to limit one·s research to people from Lugo and highlights the ambiguity often
associated with the idea of "being from Lugo (ser de Lugo)". For example, r went to
Carmen and Fatima·s mother's home in an industrial town in the Galician province of A
Comiia several times and developed a close rapport with their mother who had grown up
in the city of Lugo.
Although I did conduct previously arranged interviews \.Vith twenty individuals in the city of Lugo. people· s explanations for the fertility decline varied according to the context in which the interviews took place. For example. the people around us during a personal interview or the level oftmst established between themselves and myself seemed to affect the information and the viewpoints shared with me during these interviews. Because of people's changing responses and answers to my questions, participant-observation was of cmcial importance during my fieldwork in Lugo, especially in the context that people seemed to be more forthright in informal
20 conversations. It was through participation-observation that I experienced the emotional
bonds and closeness between friends \Vhich are very strong in Spain (Uhl 1985 and 1991 ).
Learning about the rules and obligations of these friendships proved to be times of re
socialization for me during fieldwork. My role as a young female Canadian
student/researcher melded w·ith my role as a young female Canadian friend and I was
immediately pulled into friendships. These friendships are, on many levels, similar to
friendships in Canada but f experienced them differently because oftheir heightened
intensity.
Through observing people's behaviour with one another and especially through the friendship that developed between Carmen and me. [ learned about the expectations
inherent in these relationships. While I was still living in residence, for example, I had been invited by Antonia to participate in San Juan, a festival \vhich celebrates Saint
John·s Day and marks the beginning of summer, with university students from Lugo. Out of curiosity, I asked whether Antonia had also asked Carmen, who \vas by now a close confidante of mine. to come along. Antonia told me that she had not invited Carmen.
Because I wanted to expand my social network, I was delighted that Antonia had invited me and agreed to partake in the festival with her and her friends. Shortly after I got off the phone with Antonia. Carmen called and asked if I wanted to celebrate San Juan \Vith her.
I explained that I had just made plans with Antonia. Luckily. hov.:ever, Antonia and
Carmen. who knev.. · each other through the university, talked things through and Carmen
21 did end up coming to the festival with us. It seems that these women understood that, at
the time. I did not kno"v the obligations and expectations a friend has for another friend.
More to the point. I should have known not to have accepted an invitation without
discussing it with Carmen and ensuring that \Ve both were going. This is but one of the
many examples of moments of re-socialization that I learned through participant
observation. In addition. my living in an intimate four bedroom apartment \Vith university
students was an aspect \Vhich \vas crucial in my acceptance into Carmen· s circle of
friends and family.
Because of my living arrangements and the circle of university students who
became my friends and acquaintances throughout the process of fieldwork. without
planning I realized that the majority of my main informants were members of Generation
' 75 1 ~. In anthropologists Peter Loizos and Evthymios Papataxiarchis"s (1991) edited
volume on gender and kinship in Greece. they \Hite, for example that:
This [research among young adults) is an excellent context in which to consider another level of variation that is linked to the obvious facts of social maturation and generational difference. Young unmarried men and women stress different aspects of gender from those insisted upon by the parental generation. and the young people may themselves differ on values (Loizos and Papata.xiarchis 1991 : 18).
Research among members of the age cohort of Generation ' 75 proved to be valuable for
my thesis topic because oftheir life stage. They were neither married, nor full time wage
14 On anthropological interest in youth as cultural agents see, for example, Amit Talai and \Vulffs ( 1995) edited volume.
22 earners. Young people·s ideas about marriage, romance. sexuality. parenting. gender.
work. and the Spanish fertility rate are interesting because members of this age cohort are
themselves living through a period of social transition.
The display of responsibility or feelings of obligaci6n (obligation) for family and
friends was common among the people I knew in Lugo. Thinking over my experiences in
the capital city ofthe province ofLugo during the summer of 1999, I now see that I
initially occupied a child-like social position. Carmen, along with her family. displayed a
great deal of· fuss· over me throughout my fieldwork. From their concern for my ear
infection. to blo\V drying my hair and telling me what to wear. I felt as though I \Vere
being taken care of.
Many of the university students with whom I lived in Xeszis Bet! e Gal initially
talked slowly w·ith me, ensuring that I pronounced words the way they did:
Grathias. no es graf_ias, venga. repete conmigo, grathias. .. Grathias [thank you Lit is not [pronounced] gra£ias. come on. repeat with me, grathias ...
Individuals in Generation "75 also continually taught me daily living practices such as ho\v and where to shop for groceries. how to get around in the city. what to cook, what to drink. when to eat. and what to \Vear. They also demonstrated a sense of responsibility not only for me. but for my research, expressing their desire that I succeed \Vith it and helping me to obtain contacts. It is my interpretation that my presence as a Canadian student conducting research placed them in a position of a 'heightened' sense of responsibility
?--''"' that •vent beyond their identification 'With me as a student. A woman in university
residence. for instance, had told me that another young university woman had thanked her
for befriending me as she felt that she did not \vant to have me be solely dependiente
15 (dependant) on her •
I was in a child-like social position for another reason. This position is also
intimately connected to individuals' notions of child-rearing and responsibility to friends
and family members. My social position can be understood as reflecting a shift in the
view of having a child. from an investment to a commodity which is discussed in Chapter
Three ofthis thesis (after Alberdi 1999: 147 and Collier 1997: Chapter Four). My
presence in public spaces. usually accompanied by members of Generation ·75. connects
to the cultural importance placed on the displaying of one's social status through Ia red social (social connections or social relations). In Lugo, the number of people whom one
knows and the public display of these connections by stopping frequently to converse
\Vith friends and acquaintances enhances one·s social status (Larnela Viera 1998: especially see Chapters Six and Seven; and Gulevich 1995: especially Chapter Three).
\Vhen I went out •vith young informants. many people approached us and sought more information about me and about why I was in Lugo because they did not recognize me. I looked like una exlranjera (a female stranger, a person from away, or a foreigner) to them.
15 Also see Herzfeld ( 1987 a) for his analysis of acts of hospitali ty in Greece as these relate to power relations.
24 It is common in anthropology to understand one· s social position in the
community of study as being child-like (see. for example, Briggs 1970: 27); ho..,vever. I
raise these ret1ections of my initial child-like social position because of their relation to
the responsibility involved in befriending me and the position of ·exotic' commodity
which served to enhance others· social status. These aspects point to themes that are
pivotal in my thesis. such as the presentation of self and local interpretations of child-
rearing practices. Both these latter t\VO themes are interrelated with the local level
discourses about the fertility decline which I pursue in this thesis.
Outline ofThesis Structure and Chapters
A constant dialogue occurs throughout the thesis between the oftentimes
contradictory relationship between what informants say about gender difference and the
reasons tor the low fertility rate and their everyday practices and performances. In
deciding to disentangle the ambiguous nature of this relationship. and in presenting data
in this manner. a frequent concern in anthropology has taken shape. Am [ sacrificing, for
example. the fuller contexts of everyday living by separating everyday activities and talk
about interrelated themes into chapters? 16 Although, generally, we make sense of our
social world by organizing people and events into categories (e.g. place. time. gender.
profession. ethnicity. religious affiliation. sexuality, and age). here. I am analysing
informants· tendency to\vards strategic essentialism in order to gain a better
16 For a discussion of the challenges and critiques of etlmographic writing, see, for example, Abu-Lughod (1991 and 1993) and Marcus and Cushman (1982). understanding of the \vays in which they make sense of the fertility decline. I explore how
the everyday act of using essentialist language when talking about gender, parenting, and
fertility intersects with local level understandings and experiences of Spain· s wider
socioeconomic context.
Another common thread in this thesis interweaves published literature on fertility,
gender. and family \vith the qualitative data that I gathered. More importantly, this
research takes off from social anthropologist Jane Fishburne Collier's ethnography of
changes in family relationships in a village in Andalusia from the 1960s to the 1980s. and
her examination of the tension between meeting social obligations and thinking for
oneself. In Lugo. Galicia, informants' evaluations of changing female behaviour and life
choices is part of this interplay between meeting social obligations and thinking for
oneself and in this thesis, [explore young female university students' experiences of this
tension as it relates to the fertility rate.
I structure this thesis by dividing my eight chapters into two parts. In Chapter
Two: Towards an Analvtical Approach to Spain' s "Fertilitv Puzzle", I elaborate on the previous research on fertility and other theoretical influences w·hich helped to both guide my fieldwork and my analysis of the data that I collected. I discuss the work of anthropologist Michael Herzfeld here since my overall theoretical approach has been formed by his discussion of three concepts: "cultural intimacy'' which is discussed in more detail in the context of the relationship between state and local discourses about
26 children: .. social poetics'·: and ·'strategic essentialism'·, both ofthe latter two concepts
being useful in the analysis of everyday practices and discourses about fertility, gender,
and parenting.
I follow this second chapter with Part I: The Displav of Cultural Intimacv which
consists of two chapters. Chapter Three: Institutional Discourses on Fertilitv and Chapter
Four: Notions of Child-Rearing and Parenting complement one another and I compare
institutional discourses about Spain's Imv tertility rate to local notions of child-rearing.
While politicians. for example, talk about the need to increase Galicia ·s population,
discussed in Chapter Three, informants talk about the 'making' of children, discussed in
Chapter Four. As a whole, the state's and citizens' discourses about the importance of children are an example of Herzfeld's ·'cultural intimacy" discussed in Chapter Two.
Part II: The Interplav between Inestabilidad and Esrabilidad is primarily ethnographic and consists of three chapters. In Chapter Five: Egoismo and Meeting Social
Obli2:ations. I examine why the people whom I knew in Lugo talked about parental and youth selfishness (el egofsmo) as being a main reason for Spain's ·Jow· tertility rate. How· men and women differently experience public criticism about what it means to be good at being a good man or a good vvoman (from Herzfeld 1985) is related to local notions of gender difference and I explore their connection in both Chapters Five and Seven. While inhabitants frequently blamed young women and men for the 'low' fertility rate, everyday acts of meeting social obligations point to their not being selfish (egofsta). Indeed, there
27 is an elaborate system of social networking between family members, including extended family members. and between friends which I interpret as being a means of support and stability (estabilidad) throughout economic and emotional hardships (after anthropologist
Carol Stack 1974).
Although Spain's lov.· fertility rate is depicted in the regional and international mass media as constituting a 'social crisis', strong kinship and friendship bonds contradict this picture ofthe Spanish 'family' as unstable. I discuss how familial loyalty and emotional bonds have remained strong despite changing family patterns among infonnants in the city of Lugo in Chapter Five. The strong sense of obligation
(obligacion) for family members and the displayed closeness between friends point to the situation in which people in places such as the city of Lugo knO\V what having a child means because they live it everyday through these relationships. It comes as no surprise then. that informants of all ages talk about having a child as a major life changing decision. and one "vhich needs to be thought about extensively.
I specifically examine how university students experience economic hardships and
"inestabilidacr in Chapter Six: Generation ·75 Interpretations and Experiences of
Economic fnestabilidad. I explore university students' adaptive strategies in the context of the pressures to perform well on exams. I also discuss university students· interpretations of the role that a person's abilities, skills and ··tuck (suerte)'" have in one's successes or failures in university and in the market economy. Coupled with the economic
28 inestabilidad which informants offered as a reason for the 'low' fertility rate, many young informants talked about and displayed the unstable 'quality' of gender relationships which is the topic of Chapter Seven: Courting Practices and Femininity among Members of Generation '75.
In Chapter Seven, I explore changing courting practices through a description of gendered night life practices. I discuss young female interpretations of femininity and their connection to public opinion about the ideal feminine characteristics and the ideal female body image. An analysis of notions of femininity and gender practices points to an overall pattern of change and continuity in notions of gender difference.
In my concluding Chapter Eight: Revisiting Spain's "Fertility Puzzle", I bring the chapters together again. I review, for example, the dialectical relationship between
"structure., and agency as these relate to everyday local level practices, performances, strategies, and experiences of the wider Spanish socioeconomic context which includes a
'low' fertility rate.
29 Chapter Two: To\vards an Analvtical Approach to Spain·s "Fertilitv Puzzle ..
I was sitting next to a young couple in the Madrid airport waiting for the delayed
flight which was bound for Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The couple were visibly
together. holding hands, whispering in each others' ear, affectionately exchanging kisses.
They \vere probably arotmd my age, early or mid-tw·enties, I thought to myself. I was glad
that I had decided to change my routine this day from presenting myself in loosely fitting,
somewhat sloppy casual wear to a newer pair of Levi's jeans and a shirt which I had
recently acquired from a more expensive clothing store than the ones in which I usually
shop. On this particular day, I was travelling from Canada to Galicia, Spain to conduct
qualitative research on the Spanish fertility decline. The couple was \Veil-dressed, she was
wearing a dark pair of greyish dress pants and fitted jacket while his attire consisted of a
pair of beige dress pants and name brand Polo shirt. Glancing over at her matching socks
and elegant shoes. I looked down at my own and wondered \Vhy I hadn't worn a nicer
pair. Her shiny· black hair S\vept loosely over her shoulders and I noticed that her shade of
eye shadow matched her appareL His dark hair \vas combed back and looked as though it had been kept in place by hair geL
Another couple sat across from me. This second couple was also stylishly dressed.
She had streaked blond hair. voluptuous red lips and a long v-neck cream sweater over which a necklace hung. Her fingernails were painted red. She wore a glistening diamond
30 ring on her right hand. He was dressed similarly to the man described above. This second
couple looked slightly older than the first couple~ sitting adjacent to myself. Based on
their appearances. ho\.vever. both couples. as well as most of the people lingering around
the same terminal. looked financially well-off. The second couple seated across from me
\.vere not as openly affectionate with each other as the one sitting next to me. The woman
in this second couple was also visibly pregnant.
I went to the washroom at the same time as the pregnant woman and could hear
her ·vomiting. As I \vaited to get paper towel, the other women in the washroom seemed
not to hear the woman ·s regurgitation. Some women in the bathroom talked to one
another while others re-touched their make-up. Within a few minutes~ the woman who
was pregnant came over to where the rest of us stood, washed her mouth and hands, and
fixed her hair without uttering a word to any of us standing around.
Making my way back to my seat in the terminal. I asked myself what the odds
were. so early in my research. of my encountering this couple vvho were expecting a child
(or children). I thought to myself, ·'How will I proceed to conduct research on the fertility decline!?"' [had several questions which I wanted answers for such as: How do Galicians in different settings negotiate both broader and more local discourses regarding family planning? Given that I had been told by my thesis supervisor that people in Galicia talk extensively about the 'low' fertility rates in Spain and in Galicia in particular, what advice \.vas being offered to new couples by Catholic priests about reproductive practices
31 and parenting responsibilities? How do inhabitants talk about family planning and
parenting vvithin an urban context? Are both parents active in childcare or is it primarily
mothers· responsibility? What role does women's increased attendance at post-secondary
educational institutions and pursuit of professional jobs have on reproductive practices?
What childcare facilities are available for urban parents? What role do maternity leave
benefits play in individuals' family planning decision-making? Does the stem-family
household tradition of some rural areas in Galicia have any impact on the everyday life of
families living in the city of Lugo? And although I had a plan as to how I would conduct
my research. seeing an expecting couple in the airport had the effect of making me
become anxious and very mvare of what I was actually going to be doing in the city of
Lugo.
Given that my interest in fertility stemmed from my conviction of the need for additional qualitative research into the understanding of demographic patterns. I begin belov\· by outlining previous investigations on similar projects. I also outline anthropological research on reproductive patterns which helped to guide me throughout fieldwork. I then discuss the theoretical approaches of Herzfeld \vhich were key to my analysis of much data.
Spain's .. FertilitY Puzzle'"
As in other Western European countries (for example, France and Germany), fertility rates have been falling in Spain since the end of the nineteenth century (Leasure 1 1963: Riphagen and Lehert 1989) • However, while L~e fertility rates are now stabilizing in some other countries, those for Spain and Italy are still dropping (Delgado Perez and
Livi-Bacci 1992). Spain's trend towards a dramatically low fertility rate has been characterized by authors such as anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh ( 1995) as posing a challenge to demographic theory.
In their exploration of potential reasons for the declining historical and cmTent fertility levels. demographers have emphasized the importance of a long list of
'quantifiable variables' which are lumped into psychological. sociaL cultural and biological categories (Delgado Perez and Livi Bacci 1992; Fuster l 989: Fuster, Jimenez and Morales 1995; Livi-Bacci 1968; and Reher and Iriso-Napal 1989). For example, the age of women at marriage, the age of mothers at the birth of their first child, migration practices, and the availability of contraceptives and abortion. are all mentioned in relation to fertility practices (Fuster 1989: Fuster, Jimenez and Morales 1995: and Reher and
Iriso-Napal 1989). Demographers also include other social factors such as: the level of education in a country or region and the percentage of literate people, rates of unemployment, and the cost of housing (Delgado Perez and Livi Bacci 1992). Some
·biological" factors explored include: intervals between births, child mortality, sterility.
1 There was a slight increase between 1955 and 1965 (the total fertility rate was 2.79 in 1960 and 2.97 in 1965). This increase coincides with changes in the Spanish economy and socio-political situation (Nash 1991 ). This time frame is deemed the '·liberalization period" (Jordan 1995) that preceded the 'economic boom· ofthe late 1960s and 1970s (Shubert 1990). and breast-feeding practices in relation to the lactation period (Fuster 1989: and Fuster.
Jimenez and Morales 1995).
However. by reducing 'variables' into categories and by analysing information
within a quantitative framework, demographers are not always able to fully account for
local experiences and changes in fertility patterns. This has been the case for Spain's
declining fertility rates in the late 20th century (Delgado Perez and Livi-Bacci 1992;
Leasure 1963: and livi-Bacci 1968). As anthropologists David Kertzer and Tom Fricke
( 1997) state:
The classic prediction variables of demographic transition theory- urbanization, literacy, infant and child mortality. and industrialization- failed to account for the historic decline in fertility. The result was some serious rethinking of fertility decline and, more generally, of approaches to understanding demographic behavior (Kertzer and Fricke 1997: 11 ).
Another demographic 'factor' has therefore recently been emphasized in demographers· vvork on the ·fertility question': attitudinal shifts. This rethinking in the discipline in the I960s-70s involved the incorporation of an added element. that of
'culture·. Indeed as Greenhalgh ( 1995) notes in her overview of the relationship bet\veen anthropology and demography:
Over the last decade or so a Long line of eminent demographers has bemoaned the disappointing state of the field. By these accounts, demography is theoretically thin, substantively shrinking, and neglectful ofglobal political and economic changes that are transforming its object of study (Greenhalgh 1995: 11 ).
34 A common theme found in the demographic literature centers on this need for a qualitative focus on behavioral shifts and patterns when studying fertility rates. However, speculative undertones are characteristic of these analyses. For example:
These are. of course. only provisional and tentative suggestions. to be explored \Vith the more sensitive tools of the historian and not by rigid statistical techniques ... whatever ans\ver we g1ve \Vould remain an hypothesis (Livi-Bacci 1968: 101).
This emphasis on culture and behaviour by demographers specializing in quantitative analyses indicated the necessity for different methods and theoretical frameworks: "All this. of course. led demography straight to anthropology, the presumed repository of wisdom on the nature of culture" (Kertzer and Fricke 1997: 11 ; also see Brettell 1985,
1986, and 1991 for an example of an anthropological approach to demographic patterns in Northv.:estem Portugal).
My research inquiry into the daily practices of middle-class Galicians living in the
Spanish city of Lugo and their everyday discourses about gender, romance, marriage, parenting. \Vork, and the Spanish ' low' fertility rate is part of this larger question about demographic patterns, one which stems from the need for qualitative research on fertility.
As demographer William Leasure wTote almost five decades ago: ·' ... we must admit that we do not know in any precise way how attitudes and behaviour \Vith respect to family patterns are detern1ined'' (Leasure 1963 : 283). This thesis is largely about hO\v inhabitants of the city of Lugo. Galicia are experiencing wider socioeconomic shifts such as 'the
35 urbanization project' occurring in Spain and in Galicia in particular: high rates of
unemployment: changing social roles of women; and increasing divorce rates. I focus
predominantly on local level interpretations of the low birth rate as these interrelate \Vith
local experiences of socioeconomic changes. ln other words. the core of this thesis
centers on individuals· agency and actions out of which I explore cultural constructions of
gender difference and notions of parenting which inhabitants frequently talked about
using essentializing language. I discuss, for example, how the strategic essential ising of
gender difference relates to everyday practices and family plruming decision-making in
contemporary Lugo city.
Recent anthropological work on reproduction and body politics (for example
Anagnost 1995: Ginsburg and Rapp 1991, 1995; Jordanova 1995; and Ward 1995) has
also centered on a similar focus. Moreover, some ethnographic accounts of changing
gender and parenting roles (for example Collier 1997; Hoodfar 1997; and Schneider and
Schneider 1995. 1996) have emphasized ·toea!" level interpretations of reproductive
patterns. This \vork has highlighted important questions: Are there social pressures to
ha\·e children? If so. how· are people negotiating these influences? \Vhat options are
being weighed during decision-making? What kind of information are political and
religious institutions providing to citizens of different states? What impact do these
institutions have on decision-making at the household level and vice-versa? These questions point to an interest of mine in the dialectical relationship between •·stmcture"
36 and agency and hovv in tum. this relationship transcends into ·local' level strategies.
Before elaborating on this interest however, I outline below an approach to the study of
fe~~iliry which helped to guide my research.
Micro-Demog:raphv: An Institutional Demo2:raphic Approach
In generaL severe problems in the collection and analysis of fertility data--notably the emphasis on marital fertility and the almost total neglect of men in any approach to fertility--can be attributed to concentration on a limited concept of fertility. While this concept of fet1ility appears to be based satisfactorily on the hard facts ofbiology, it is inadequate to the connections to human activity that are essential for the level o [explanation to which we aspire (Townsend 1997: 99).
Ironically. although many demographers have now turned to the concept of
culture. they are emphasizing a notion of culture that is considered outdated by many
anthropologists. As Kertzer and Fricke ( 1997) explain. ·'contemporary [ aiHhropo logical]
cultural theories ... treat culture as an environment, or context. that influences and is
influenced by human action" ( 1997: 18). In other \Vords, unlike some demographers,
anthropologists interested in demography do not use 'culture· as a quantifiable variable.
In a similar manner. anthropologists define 'fertility' differently than demographers.
Anthropologist Nicholas To"vnsend (1997), for example, treats ··fertility itself as a social
institution embedded in social processes·· ( 1997: 100) . Greenhalgh ( 199j) further offers a reconceptualization of fertility (or reproductionf and argues that our understanding of the
2 ·· ... terms we use synonymously" (Greenhalgh 199j: 5).
37 3 dynamics of reproduction must include four concepts: culture, history • gender, and power
(Greenhalgh 1995: 5). As demonstrated in the important earlier work on migration.
inheritance. and households by anthropologists such as Caroline Brettell ( 1985, 1986.
1988. and 1991 ). the focus of fertility research can therefore be the .. creation of \vhole
demographies that contextualize reproductive behavior not only in the social and
economic terms of conventional demographic theory but in political and cultural terms as
well"' (Greenhalgh 1995: 12). Greenhalgh further outlines an approach used by
anthropologists and one which is particularly relevant for my proposed research topic.
An institutional demographic approach considers the importance of cultural and
political contexts in the analysis of contemporary fertility patterns. For example.
anthropologists Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider (I 996) employ this method in their
exploration of fertility practices in Villamaura. Sicily. Because this approach recognizes
·'historical contingency and societal specificity. and embraces narrative modes of explanation that can accommodate such forces as gender and power" (Greenhalgh
1995: 12). the Schneiders are able to render people as .. active agents in adjusting the reproductive strategies of families to political-economic change·· (Galt 1999; also see
Brettell 1986 for an example in Portugal). Indeed this approach emphasizes the view of people as active creators of strategies and as rational decision-makers based upon what understandings they have of their own situation (Ibid.). Following anthropologist
Follov.ing Pierre Bourdieu: "time is not merely lived, but is constructed in the living .. (Bourdieu 1977: 22).
38 Anthony Carter (I 995) agency is defined as:
a reflexive monitoring and rationalization of a continuous flow of conduct. in which practice is constituted in a dialectical way. both cultural concepts--the values assigned to different behaviors--and political economy--the forces creating the setting--become ingredients to, rather than external to, action, and the human agent is placed center stage (Carter 1995: 19).
In this way, agency is an important piece of the fertility puzzle. In sum. anthropologists interested in fertility questions have in the process reconceptualized reproduction ...transforming it from a biological event, the demographic view, into a socially constmcted process" (Greenhalgh 1995: 14). An institutional demographic approach places an emphasis on culture and political economy, gender. agency. power, and history. People·s practices and discourses are key pieces of this approach. especially when trying to understand ·toea!' strategies.
Practice. Discourse and Power
The emphasis on practice is part of the growing interest in anthropology since the
1970s which .. seeks to explain the relationship(s) that obtain between human action, on the one hand. and some global entity which we may call "the system', on the other"
(Ortner 1984: 148 ). In other words a dialectical relationship exists betv;een the ··system" and agency. As Bourdieu ( 1977) emphasises:
(these] objective structures are themselves products of historical practices and are constantly reproduced and transformed by historical practices whose productive principle is itself the product of the structures which it consequently
39 tends to reproduce (Bourdieu 1977: 83).
In reference to my research, a wider socio-economic context that includes state policies and institutional discourses on fertility are considered to be the ·•system··. Agency refers to the practices and discourses people use in an everyday context. As Hans Medick and David Sabean ( 1984) remind us. Bourdieu '·argues against vie\ving family and kinship relations as objects, but rather as practices \Nhich embody srraregies ...
Understanding interests im·olves penetrating the screen of language to the concrete matching of practice with social and economic conditions'' (Medick and Sabean 1984: 24, emphasis in original; also see Hoodfar 1997 for an example of an ethnography influenced by Bourdieu·s theoretical concepts).
Sociologist Pamela Carter ( 1995) notes in her discussion of feminism and reproduction that:
... discourses and power are intertwined in mutually reinforcing ways which, according to [Michel] Foucault ( 1981 ). must be analyzed in locaL and historically specific, situations. His is a distinctive w-ay of understanding power: ·Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society'(Foucault 1981: 93). Power seen in this way, is within everyday social relations and expressed through them (Carter 1995: 28).
In this manner, the interrelation between institutional and ' local" discourses are of primary interest when proposing to investigate ·'the effects of truth that this power produces and transmits, and in their tum reproduce this po\ver" (Foucault !980: 93).
40 Thus. I am at once influenced by Bourdieu and Foucault"s interest in the genesis of
.. generation practices", what produces them and what they produce (de Certeau 1984: 58).
On Herzfeld"s Cultural Intimacv
In his exploration of the relationship between nation-states and citizens of nation-
states. Herzfeld argues against a top-dO\vn or bottom-up lineal understanding of their co-
existence. Instead, he approaches the dialectical relationship in a manner similar to
Foucault's and Bourdieu's .. generation practices". Herzfeld treats ·'the conceptual
separation of state and people. so pervasive in academic and popular v.Titings alike. as a
symbolic construct. deserving of study in its ov.rn righf'(Herzfeld 1997: 5). As with
Foucault's .. discourse'·. Herzfeld argues that power relations and loyalty for the nation-
state are produced and reproduced in part through citizens' and politicians' usage of
familiar, mundane language. Herzfeld notes that:
the sometimes suffocatingly formal ideology of the state lays claim to intimacy and familiarity in a series of rather obvious metaphors: the body politic, ·our boys and girls', mother country and Vaterland, the wartime enemy as the (sometimes actual) rapist of mothers and daughters. and the tourist as a 4 family guest (Ibid., emphasis in original) •
One can see then that Herzfeld· s .. cultural intimacy .. is an exploration ·'betv,:een
4 ln this manner, Herzfeld is able to account for citizens· loyalty and attachment to the nation-state. especially during periods ofwartime, a point which Benedict Anderson's thesis on the origin and spread ofnationalism(s) (1991) fails to address (Herzfeld also raises this point in 1997). Although, Anderson does place an emphasis on language and its role in the creation and spread of nationalism(s) (1991: 145), Herzfeld's cultural intimacy provides an analytical approach for understanding how attachments to the nation-state or nations within states are formed and maintained.
41 the formal idealization of collective self-presentation and the affectionate embarrassments
of collective-self-recognition'· (Herzfeld I 997: 3). [n other \vords, cultural intimacy
examines the familiarities which connect citizens and the State together. The analogy
between the Galician regional government's concern over the d\vindling fertility rate and
informants" invoking of the remaking of children is an example of the display of cultural
intimacy which [discuss in the first part ofthe thesis. That is. Manuel Fraga's. Galicia·s
president. depiction of the fertility rate as a threat to Galician biological inheritance (La
Voz de Galicia. July 26 1999: 7) is similar to informants' concern over children·s
education (educarlos), the raising and preparing of children (mantenerlos, prepararlos), and the psychological well-being of children which were prevalent topics of discussion during fieldwork.
My goal in Part I is to situate both institutional and local interest in the production and reproduction of children within Herzfeld's concept of·•cultural intimacy·· as his approach provides an analytical means to interpret the interplay betv.. ·een these discourses.
Similarly to his explanation for citizens' loyalty and attachment to the nation-state, here l focus on discourses in order to better describe the dialectical relationship between
··structure., and ·Jocal' experiences in order to contextualize the remainder of the thesis
"vhich focuses predominantly on the latter. A focus on discourses however. is only a part of Herzfeld' s approach to the study of "cultural intimacy". Ethnographic descriptions of the mundane and of daily performances are equally important. I return to one form of
42 discourse. strategic essentialism, in my discussion of Herzfeld's --social poetics".
On Herzfeld· s Social Poetics
While an emphasis on practice and discourse provided theoretical and methodological frameworks through which [ first conceptualized my research. I now view
Herzfeld's "social poetics" as also being useful for the analysis of the data that I collected. His approach encompasses both everyday practices and discourses \vhile also recognizing social performances and the ways in which "social groups fashion and refashion imagined iconicity"5 (Herzfeld 1997: !54). --Regularities··. Herzfeld \\Tites
"which seem to be embedded. are subject to negotiation.. (Ibid.). Strategic essentialism
(described belo\v) rests on the need for the naturalization of icons, which are perceived as
"natural" because of their recognition and as Herzfeld further stipulates "are effective ways of creating self-evidence" (Herzfeld 1997: 27).
On social performances, Herzfeld explains that: '•[these] reify people in culturally coded roles or identities" (Herzfeld !997: 26). What is of interest to me here, is how individuals present themselves and others on a daily basis and how they use essentialising language in strategic ways to describe male and female characteristics. For example,
\Vhere do inhabitants of the city oflugo find the binary oppositions between male and female characteristics (discussed below)? Ho\v much are local interpretations of gender difference based on the previous gender orthodoxy promoted by the Franco Regime
5 Herzfeld states that although iconicity may seem 'natural', it is also culturally constituted (Herzfeld 1997: 27).
43 ( 1939-1975). and how much are the binary oppositions found in the mass media? What
matters, and the angle from which I approach the subject matter of each chapter. is how
these codes are used in the historical-present in relation to notions of the ·[ow' fertility
rate.
Herzfeld analyses the strategic uses of binary oppositions. such as gender systems,
within the broader context of the rather .. complicated relationship between a nation-state
and its people·· (Herzfeld 1997: 172). Herzfeld \Hites that his approach of"social
poetics'"--defined in his 1997 book as "the analysis of essentialism in everyday life"
(Herzfeld 1997: 3 l )--can lead to an understanding of the interdependence of both state
and people. In this thesis, I follow Herzfeld's (1985 and 1997) emphasis on performative
excellence and Bourdicu· s ( 1977) investigation of social practices. In defining the
difference bet\veen perfoxmance and practice, Gulevich explains that a systematic
analy·sis of performance accentuates individual agency in the ·'expressing and
manipulating of[social] codes" (Gulevich 1995: 9), \vhile the notion ofpractice focuses
on the "generative schemes underlying social interaction" (Ibid.).
Therefore. I am at once influenced by Foucault's notion of discourse. Bourdieu·s emphasis on everyday practice, and Herzfeld's social poetics which, as theoretical guides,
help me to disentangle informants' use of strategic essentialism to talk about gender, and the connection of gender difference to the Galician fertility rate.
44 On Strate!:!ic Essentialism6
Individuals in Lugo talked about gender. place of residence, time and age
difference in a manner w·hich suggested structural unambiguousness. that is. as
constituting the concreteness for the 'way life is'. And while people from different age
cohorts and gender groups socially evaluated each other using all encompassing.
essentialising language, their everyday practices and performances point to the fluidity of
the categorisation of individuals. As Herzfeld remarks on strategic essentialism:
"apparent fixities are the products of the very things they deny: action. agency, and use"
(Herzfeld 1997: 165, emphasis in original). ln tum. on the pervasiveness of engendering essentialism and stereotypes. Herzfeld notes that "[these] appear correct to those who espouse them because they reduce all the members of a population to a manageable
iconicity'' (Herzfeld 1997:31. emphasis in original). For example. in Lugo. men were normally associated with ambition, characterised as selfish, and portrayed as thinking with '·the head'·. suggesting that to think \Vith one·s head is cold and calculating. Women were normallv. associated with the familv.. were characterised as self-sacrificin£.- and depicted as thinking with .. the heart", therefore being less cold and calculating and more
6 Herzteld ( 1997: 31) refers to the paper in \Vhich Spivak ( 1989) tirst employs the term ""strategic essentialism·· within the context of Western discourses about the "Other", defining subaltern studies. That is, the nonelite's (subaltern group) consciousness is a form of strategic essentialism because, "the group \\'rites as if aware of their complicity with subaltern insurgency" (1996: 204). Spivak' s use of"strategic essentialism" emerges out of a post-colonialist, critical framework. (See, for example, The Spivak Reader (Landry and Maclean 1996) for an introduction to her work). In this thesis, I. however, use the term according to Herzfeld's model of social poetics (see above).
45 in touch with their feelings and emotions. Hovvever. in the context of my research on the
fertility rate. people frequently told me that it is low because of people's selfishness or
self-centeredness (e/ egofsmo). More particularly. informants made frequent reference to
the ·moral" deterioration ohvomen while explaining to me that women \Vere behaving
more like men. a topic which I discuss in Chapters Five and Seven. As Herzfeld states on
essentialistic discourses:
the rhetoric of self-evidence thus contains the means of its own decomposition; through ironic plays of the vocabulary-gestural as well as verbal-of ordinariness, it allows actors to expion;.: lhe cultural rules through which they can reconstitute regularity in each situation as it arises (Herzfeld 1997: 154).
How men and women differently experience these social criticisms and w·hat the invoking of gender generalisations and stereotypes suggests is explored in Part II of this thesis. Thus. in trying to understand strategic essentialism. l am not analysing data in the same dichotomous framework which informants used to explain and display gender.
Instead, I follow Herzfeld and I ask why gender difference is talked about using all encompassing language; I ask in which contexts are notions of gender difference being talked about and played out: and I explore ho\v the complex pattern of change and continuity in notions of gender difference is experienced by young adult female informants.
My adoption of Herzfeld's social poetics as a model and strategic essentialism as a way to analyse what it means to be good at being a '"good woman" for young women in
46 the city of Lugo intersects well with a post-structuralist approach to gender.
On Gender Difference
The language used to describe gender difference and changing gender practices among the university students \Vhom I knew in Lugo reflect the broader socioeconomic and political shifts in Spain. Similarly. my approach to understanding gender practices and local notions of gender difference reflects broader shifts in anthropology and more particularly, in analyses of gender and identity making in Southern Europe.
In their attempts to understand ·Mediterranean· gender identities. sexuality and gender difference, anthropologists in the 1960s used an "honour and shame'· moral code which they said was prevalent in Southern European countries: ·'Honour and shame are social evaluations and thus participate of [sic] the nature of social sanctions ... [they] are two poles of an evaluation" (Peristiany 1965: 9). As anthropologist Julian Pin-Rivers writes in the same 1965 volume: .. [honour and shame] obliges a man to defend his honour and that of his family. a woman to conserve her purity" (Pitt-Rivers 1965: 42). Roseman and Kelley ( 1999) explain that the honour and shame code
[w]as developed on the basis of what early British ethnographers [i.e.. Peristiany 1965: Pitt-Rivers 1965] highlighted as one of the most significant and pervasive cultural themes that they encountered in ·Mediterranean' societies; it accotmted for interhousehold competition between men for prestige and personal honour and an apparently corresponding emphasis on women's shame (Roseman and Kelley 1999: 92).
47 Anthropologist David Gilmore (1987) describes the honour and shame code as a gender-based moral system which defines a Mediterranean world. and one where ·•people communicate and gain an identity both with and within the group·· (1987: 17). [n his elaboration of the relationship among sex roles, gender identity (focusing on manhood). and honour and shame in Mediterranean societies, Gilmore notes that '·[m]asculinity is, first. often defined as the complementary obverse of femininity; and second. this differentiation encourages a male role \vhich is problematic. controvertible. or ·elusive· .. .
Manhood therefore is not only ·created culturally" in these societies, ... but also culturally and publicly sustained" (Gilmore 1987: 9). He further adds that "women's status varies on the basis of fecundity and relative compliance with repressive norms .. (ibid.).
However. there has also been much rethinking of the use of the honour and shame code as the primary way to explain hovv women and men experience gender difference in southern Europe.
Michael Herzfeld \\Tites that the honour and shame code is the product of .. an anthropology embedded in its own cultural and historical origins. rather than of a set of objectified ·Mediterranean societies·" (Herzfeld 1987: 76). Herzfeld adds that:
The study of a constructed phenomenon such as 'the Mediterranean code of honor and shame· is a study of our own relationship to the cultures in question. For this reason, the honor and shame argument which was originally designed to tease out the coherent uniqueness of Mediterranean societi es, ultimately undermines itself: it shows hov,; these societies share with the ideology of the western nation-state a set of values that we have nonetheless tried to treat as
48 unique to them (Herzfeld 1987: 12).
Indeed Portuguese anthropologist Joao de Pina-Cabral ( 1989) argues that "'any
attempt to explain phenomena associated with cultural regionalism in terms of individual
psychological development is .... doomed to failure" (Pina-Cabral 1989: 402). Writing
later on the subject of the applicability of the moral code system to our understanding of
gender particularly in non-Mediterranean southern Europe. feminist anthropologists
highlight the danger and the influence of these conceptual frameworks w·hen applied to
data on local level perspectives. In anthropologist Sally Cole's examination of the
construction of gender and work among women in an Atlantic coastal community in
northern Portugal. for example. she notes that
women were victims of their sexuality not only in the honor and-shame conceptualization oflocal gender systems, but also in ethnographic writing that generally saw women through their reproductive roles as wives and mothers and neglected their roles in economic production-which are primary tn women's perceptionofthemselves (Cole 1991: 78).
Moreover. Roseman and Kelley argue that in the case of Galicia \Vhich has been compared to northern Portugal because ofwomen's work roles in agriculture and a pattern of female inheritance (see Kelley 1988, 1991. and 1994; also see Brettell 1986,
1988, 1991 and Cole 1991 for examples from northern Portugal), ''its presentation by some as being distinct from southern Iberia has at times led to an exaggerated inversion of the original formulations of the 'honour and shame· paradigm" (Roseman and Kelley
1999: 92). Roseman and Kelley continue that "the most extreme inversion is to label
49 societies like Galicia as ·matriarchal"' (Ibid.).
Given the po\ver of interrelated discourses between academics and ·locals·. how
might an anthropologist approach the study of strategic essentialism should one desire to
avoid generalizations \Vhich \Vould mask over everyday practices and talk about gender
difference among informants?
Post-Structuralism and Gender in Anthropoloi!V
To borrow once again from Herzfeld ( 1985), I am interested in ho\V individual
strategies and discourses point to local level interpretations of what it means to be good at
being a man or a woman in relation to the fertility rate. I attempt to understand how
individuals. specifically young university women. negotiate the tensions between the thought of being egoista (selfish) and sacrificing for the family. Experiences of this tension are underscored by Collier's recent analysis of the distinction made by villagers and emigrants of Los Olivos bet\veen meeting social obligations and thinking for oneself
(Collier 1997).
In anthropologist Henrietta Moore· s (1994) exploration of anthropological analyses of gender difference and gender identities, she notes that ·'the social differences between women and men may be located in the bod)' as natural differences··. adding ··this produces a discursive space where theories of social (gender) difference are grounded in the physiology of the body, and thus function as part of the biological facts of sex difference"' (Moore 1994: 13-14). In part, this was the case with the honour and shame
50 code used to describe gender difference in southern Europe. That is. gender difference was analysed in terms of sexuality (the sexed body) and women's reproductive roles. As
Pitt-Rivers argued... The natural qualities of sexual potency or purity and the moral qualitites associated with them provide the conceptual framework on which the system
[honour and shame code] is constructed'' (Pitt-Rivers 1965: 45). However, in an attempt to get beyond an analysis of gender difference and gender identities within a dichotomous framev,:ork. the question then becomes: How do I interpret local level essentialism about gender difference and analyse this in relation to Spain's fertility decline?
Moore explains that ·•gendered subjectivity does not have to be conceived of as a fixed and singular identity, but can be seen instead as one based on a series of subject positions. some conflicting or mutually contradictory, that are offered by different discourses .. (Moore 1994: 4). Yet, arguing that •·gender is the set of variable social constructions placed upon ... differentiated bodies·· (Moore 1994: 14) does not solve the problem ofhovv "'to link what we might call dominant cultural models of gender to specific experiences and situations of particular groups or individuals within a social context'" (Moore 1994: 15). Although Moore highlights the complexity involved in trying to understand and locate gender difference and its interrelation to gender identities,
Herzfeld's analysis of strategic essentialism is useful because it asks that one get to know the regularities of informants, the mundane so-to-speak; that is, aspects which seem to be natural but nonetheless are talked about pervasively which. somew·hat ironically, suggests
51 that notions such as gender difference are indeed just that: notions which are subject to
negotiation and evaluation. What is important then, are the site(s) in which these notions
become played out. In order to demonstrate '·\vhere the lines of difference solidify and
where they break down'· (Moore 1994: 41 ). I explore young people ·s practice of going
out with both male and female friends, interaction in the context of the wider education
system. and in terms of employment opportunities in the job market. The contexts of
socialising practices between mothers and their daughter(s) in households is also of key
importance, especially considering that the members of these tvvo age cohorts were raised
during different political and socioeconomic circumstances. The contexts of socialisation
practices become particularly insightful in terms of the importance which informants
seemed to place on reaching an equilibria (balance) between sacrificing for one's family
and thinking of oneself or being selfish. As I elaborate in this thesis, in the context of the
low fertility rate, people invoked notions of gender difference. They argued that fertility is
low because of several factors such as the following: the previous generation of mothers having nm dedicated enough time towards 'properly' raising their children vvhich has led to the influential power of the mass media and to women ·s moral corruption: and women· s access to more economic choices and their consequent over-identification w·ith personal an1bition or egoismo (self-centeredness).
In this thesis, I do not take the position that gender identities are afait-accompli, but rather I ask hov.,; these are constructed and reconstructed in present-day urban Galicia. Similarly. I am interested in how notions of gender difference influence young women's
perceptions of femininity and womanhood, especially in the context of public criticism
about their display of feminine sexuality and concern with body image as these relate to
the lovv· fertility rate. I am therefore suggesting that in Lugo there is a complex pattern of
shifting gender practices and continuing gender ideologies passed onto members of
Generation ·75 and I explore this in Chapters Five. Six and Seven.
Conclusions
I began this chapter outlining demographers' approaches to understanding fertility
patterns. Although theirs is a fruitful approach in that they are able to trace broad
demographic changes. what \Vas missing, and where anthropologists picked up from,
were analyses as to why certain patterns exist and how people experience these patterns.
An anthropological approach is very helpful in understanding research on the consistently
low fertility rates in Spain.
Although I incorporated anthropological work on ferti lity and body-politics (see.
for example. Ginsburg and Rapp 1991 and 1995) into my initial approach to my thesis
topic. I had not anticipated focusing explicitly on how people talk about the lessening of
social differences between women and men as one of the reasons for the low fertility rate.
In trying to disentangle informants' notions about gender difference and their relation to social identities in urban Galicia, I employ Herzfeld's ( 1997) conceptual approach of social poetics and one of its aspects. strategic essentiali sm. Post-structuralist
53 understandings of the category "gender" are equally helpful because they reinforce the malleability and complexity of notions of gender difference. In addition, this approach also recognizes agency and the minute daily living contexts in which gender identities are displayed. This is unlike some earlier work on gender in southern Europe in which the honour and shame code was used in order to understand gender identities and notions of gender difference. However, by going beyond this dichotomous framework, I am able to explore informants' experiences of gender ideologies and the c01mection of notions of gender difference to the low fertility rate.
Herzfeld' s (1997) approach to the understanding of the intimate relationship between the State and citizens of states is useful for my analysis of institutional and local notions of fertility and child-rearing practices which is the focus of Part I. For now, I proceed on this note and tum to Chapter Three in which I discuss institutional discourses of fertility, current family-planning policies, and family-planning centres available to inhabitants in the city of Lugo.
54 Part 1: The Display of Cultural Intimacy
55 Chapter Three: Institutional Discourses on Fertilitv
It \vas not difficult to find people in the city of Lugo \vho would talk about their
interpretation of the low birth rate because the situation was well-known and inhabitants
made frequent reference to it. Regional newspapers overflowed with articles on fertility
patterns. In La Voz de Galicia, one of Galicia's regional nevvspapers. a special section on
''La Crisis Demograjica (The Demographic Crisis)" was regularly inserted during the
summer of 1999. The demographic history of Galicia and Spain, current demographic
patterns. and estimations of future fertility rates were frequently profiled in this
newspaper insett. The abundance of information in these articles depicted governmental
and scholarly opinions on "Ia siwaci6n crilica (the critical situation)", \vhich included the
demographic tendency towards an aging population. Contraceptive use, opinions on
abortion. adoption, and the responses of Catholic clergy to reproductive technologies
\vere also frequently portrayed in regional newspapers. Why did three major regional
newspapers. El Correo Gallego, La Voz de Galicia, and El Progreso, habitually publish
articles on Galician demographic patterns? Was it simply because. as one Canadian journalist recently remarked?
Spaniards are inherently gregarious; they find comfort in numbers. So for some it's unsettling to see the traditional image of a large family chattering over the dinner table yield to one of Mom and Dad walking through a shopping mall \Vith a lone tot in tow ( The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2000: Al2).
56 Fertility decline in Spain is not a recent phenom~non; for example fertility rates have been steadily declining since the end of the nineteenth century (Bertrand 1992 and
Livi-Bacci 1968). Influential institutions such as the Catholic Church and the Spanish
State have long been concerned with demographic patterns. This tendency to\vards an invested interest in Spain's population numbers helps to contextualize the current language employed by Galician government officials. In this chapter I focus predominantly on current regional government discourses on fertility in Galicia, while recognising that the language of"the social crisis"' is part of a larger pattern of a long- term Spanish concern with demographic behaviour.
In order to situate present-day local and institutional interest in fertility and in
1 reproduction in general , the first section of this chapter traces an historical overview of
2 Church and State concerns with demographic patterns • I follow with a brief discussion of
1 The Galician government's interest in fertility patterns may also be interrelated with the Spanish state's, and the European Union's concern with demographic patterns. I recognize the significance of these wider institutional discourses. that thev mig:ht affect ~ ~ . . - Galicians. However. to explore the connection between these different levels of political interest in demography is beyond the scope of this chapter. How much the increasing homogenization of social policies, such as maternity leave and parental leave, throughout the E.U. member nation-states reflect or will impact Galicians and more generally Spanish parenting ideologies is also of interest but beyond the scope of this thesis. I am mainly interested in the connection between official discourse and local discourse in a Galician context.
~ In my discussion of current institutional concerns with fertility, I do not include an overview of representatives of the Catholic Church. Inhabitants in the city of Lugo did not talk about the involvement of the Church nor did the regional newspapers include articles on Catholic clergy's opinions, except with respect to issues surrounding abortion and the abortion pill in Spain.
57 anthropological approaches to the study of natal ism and discuss pronatalist policies established during the Franco Regime ( 1939-1975). The last part of the chapter is dedicated to an examination of present-day regional government responses to the low
Galician and Spanish fertility rates and current reproductive trends.
Historical Overview of Church and State Concerns about Reproductive Patterns
[Ideas and] feelings about '·reproduction.. are part of the cultural currency of a time and help shape people"s sense of themselves (Jordanova 1995: 370).
The theoretical framework for ·'practice" anthropology and the related notions of discourse and strategic essentialism discussed in Chapter Two interconnect closely with anthropological research on reproduction. As anthropologists Faye Ginsburg and Rayna
Rapp ( 1991) acknowledge "we increasingly understand local reproductive relations to be both constituted by and resistant to more global forms of power" (Ginsburg and Rapp
1991 :313). Thus the concern here is with "the 'domestication· of family life through the policing of the family by the modern state" (Medick and Sabean 1984: 9). Ho\vever as historian Ludmilla Jordanova ( 1995) explains, the micro-politics of individuals" reproductive practices in relation to the state/government is not a completely new configuration. The Catholic Church (and other religious bodies) have had a long- standing investment in individuals' family planning practices.
In their ethnographic account on the practice of coitus interruptus in Villamaura,
Sicily. Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider (1995) present historical information outlining
58 the influence of Catholic doctrine on reproductive behaviours since the days of Augustine
(fifth century A.D). They state that "any sexual act not directed toward producing
offspring "vas tantamount to lechery and sinful. using a spouse against nature.. (Schneider
and Schneider 1995: 180-181 ). [n this way, the purpose of marriage \Vas considered to be
for procreation. This reference to a view· of sexuality as tied to 'moral' responsibility is
echoed in the establishment of many European state policies concerning reproductive
practices.
Jordanova ( 1995) explains that the politicization of reproduction--in her terms, the
state interference \Vith reproductive practices--stems out of the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In an earlier article she outlines ho\v. during the course of the
nineteenth century, women in European countries such as France were increasingly
de tined by their biology and as feminine objects of masculine science (Jordanova 1980).
Within this frame\vork, women's destiny became motherhood: "In her pregnant state
woman evoked nature yet again through her capacity to reproduce the species, to pass on
life" (Jordanova 1980:57).
Writing earlier than Jordanova. however, Michel Foucault (1978) situates the
vie\v of the body as machine and as reproducer as originating out of the seventeenth
century. He \vTites that the supervision of the body is an expression of power and "was effected through an entire series of intervention and regztlatOIJ' controls: a biopolitics of the population.. (Foucault 1978: 139, emphasis in original). He understands this bio-
59 power to be an indispensable element in the development of capitalism, "the latter would
not have been possible without insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and
the adjustment of the phenomena (sic in translation from French to English) of population
to economic processes" (Foucault I 978: 141). More recently, Emily Martin ( 1997) has
also explored how notions of the body are intert\vined with changes in methods of
economic production:
... the people in the United States (and perhaps elsewhere) are no\v experiencing a dramatic transition in body perception and practice from bodies suited for and conceived in the terms of the era ofFordist mass production to bodies suited for and conceived in terms of the era offlexible accumulation (Martin 1997: 544).
Jordanova. Foucault and Martin's wTitings all suggest an interconnectedness
bet\veen the micro-power of the body and the macro-power of political-economic
structures: body politics. Thus we see that an explicit emphasis on women as reproducers
has an extensive history within religious doctrine and more recently (during the past two centuries) within a state context. But when did women begin to be seen as reproductive
instruments for the state? As is discussed below, exploring this question necessitates a discussion ofthe concept of·'sex" and its relation to reproductive behaviours.
The Catholic Church has been clear on matters of sexuality: sexuality should be heterosexual. it should be directed toward procreation, and procreation should occur within the context of marriage (Schneider and Schneider 1995). Indeed in the eighteenth century, follow·ers of Cornel is Jansen vigorously '·restored the hard-line position on
60 sexuality and contraception" (Schneider and Schneider 1995: 182). HOi.vever. in the context of the state and following Foucault's idea of the intrinsic ··dynamic racism. a racism of expansion'· (Foucault 1978: 125). we come to a ·generalizable' expression of nationalism - reproducing for the state, for the nation and simultaneously expressing xenophobia for the ·other'. As Jordanova (1995) states with reference to a nineteenth century concern \\ith reproduction for the state •· .. . many of these works stressed the need for a larger or better population (or both), the positive consequences of gro\ving nations made up of healthy people. and the responsibility of parents to reproduce appropriately
(Buer 1968)"(Jordanova 1995: 377). Foucault ( 1978) also explains that during this time period. this focus on procreation for the state/nation brought \Vith it shifts in discourses on
3 ·'sex" :
One sees the elaboration of this idea that there exists something other than bodies, organs, somatic localizations, functions, anatomo-physiological systems, sensations, and pleasures; something else and something more. with intrinsic properties and laws ofits mvn: ·•sex" (Foucault 1978: 153).
In this \vay. the ·function' ofthe body (particularly \vomen's reproductive capacities) and the ·function· of "sex"' (procreation) were of church and state concern and defined \Vi thin this discourse about reproductive potential.
3 Foucault further outlines three ways in w·hich •·sex" was defined: '·As that which belongs in common to men and women; as that which belongs, par excellence, to men, and hence is lacking in women; but at the same time, as that which by itself constitutes woman's body, ordering it wholly in terms of the functions of reproduction and keeping it in constant agitation through the effects of that very function" (emphasis in original, Foucault 1978: 153).
61 During the twentieth century, States' various interventions into reproductive patterns are evident in the implementation of explicit policies. Because these interventions usually take place where there is a concern about fertilit.Y rates, the establishment of anti-natalist or pronatalist policies is common.
Anthropoloeical Approaches to the Studv of Natalism4
In 1979. in an "overpopulated'' China, the state imposed a one-child policy on the
Chinese people. the first of its kind (Handwerker 1995). In her exploration of anti-natalist policies and the notion of "population' in post-Mao China, anthropologist Ann Anagnost
( 1995) notes that:
Since the announcement of the one-child policy in 1978, population has been raised insistently not just as a problem but as a principal causal factor in China's failure to progress in history. However, the years that followed have \Vitnessed a subtle but profound shift in the emphasis of China·s discourse on population from quantity to quality. The significance of this shift has spread far beyond the domain of reproduction as an object of state control and scientific study into the very heart of the Chinese national imagery (Anagnost 1995: 24).
In this \vay, she is able to ""account for the hegemonic power of China' s population policy as well as to trace the agency of the masses" (Anagnost 1995: 39t
4 Pro natal ism refers to the promotion of birth \Vhile anti-natalism re fers to the discouragement of birth. Both forms of natalism have been expressed through state/government policies in different countries and during different historical periods.
5 [n a similar way, anthropologist Martha Ward ( 1995) describes the impact of anti-natalist social discourses about American adolescent pregnancy rates: .. Public discourse obscures the feminization of poverty, the growth of a semipermanent
62 In Romania. initial pronatalist measures instituted under Ceausescu in 1966 included the prohibition of abortions (except in health-related cases) and the implementation of child-support benefits. Within a mere few decades, however. these policies were taken a step further and a policing of the body--women's in particular--was implemented and Romania's pronatalism became one of the most extreme cases in the history of state fertility control (Kligman 1995). For example, by 1986, this policing involved all women being subjected to regular mandatory gynecological exams that were
6 used to discover pregnancies (Kligman 1995: 242-243) .
Italy·s pronatalism policies. coming into full force in 1929 during the Mussolini dictatorship. were less coercive then those later implemented in Romania and resembled those in Franco· s Spain. In all cases. as anthropologist David Horn ( 1991: 59 5) asserts,
··to speak of reproduction as innocent or natural, even when it occurred in the countryside and resulted in large families·' was no longer possible once fertility control was proclaimed to be the right ofthe state. not ofwomen or of families.
State and religious ofticials impose discourses of ' reproduction· on individuals underclass. and the question of why so many young girls should be so poor'· (Ward 1995: 156). She concludes that the problem of school-age parenting results partly from a social construction of the nature of females and their obligations to the state (Ward 1995). In short. through her account, one is able to decipher consequential impacts of public discourses and related government policies concerning teenage pregnancies. For example, how a married or widowed young mother is eligible for more benefits than welfare provides, suggesting that women are treated or defined in relation to males (Ibid.).
6 Also see anthropologist Susan Gal (1997) for her description of pronatalist policies in Hungary during the state socialist period.
63 and families \Vhich are received and interpreted in varying ways. As Jane and Peter
Schneider ( 1995) explore in their ethnographic account of reproductive patterns in the
Sicilian town ofVillamaura. these macro-level discourses influence local-level ideas about family respectability. In addition, one's social class is of particular relevance. especially in tem1s ofthe adoption of birth-control techniques (Ibid.). The Schneiders also highlight the practice of local-level birth-control strategies, despite the existence of explicit pronatalist discourses:
... coitus interruptus gained a ready following because, practiced within marriage by mutually respectful spouses, it was not much ofa challenge to religious teachings. Tllfo\ving down the gauntlet to the relatively ineffective pronatalist policymakers of the secular states, the practice if any1hing reinforced the obvious commitment of both Catholic and Protestant churches to orderly family life (Schneider and Schneider 1995: 191).
Through their description of how broad discourses \vere transformed in people· s experiences of their 'bodies· and of"sex", one is able to clearly see the complexity underlying the impact of these discourses on reproductive patterns.
Given that there is a fairly extensive history of church and state interventions into family planning, one can then question their degree of success. That is. are the desired effects of implemented policies achieved, and if not why? Since the proposed area of
1 research is in Spain, let us now turn to the 20 h century Spanish experience with pronatalist policies.
64 Pronatalist Policies in Spain under Franco (I 939-1975)
During the Spanish Second Republic ( 193 I -39). Spanish women gained the right
7 to vote in I 931 and divorce became legal in 1932 (Graham 1995) . However. with the advent of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Nationalists' eventual victory over the Republicans. state policies regarding women shifted.
One of Franco's main concerns was Spain's continuing depopulation. This concern led to the development of pronatalist policies which were guided by explicit notions of gender 'difference·. According to anthropologist Mary Nash (1991 ). there were two key elements in their development: the idealized perception of \VOmanhood as restricted mainly to motherhood and familialism. Francoist pronatalist thought generated a view of women as being primarily mothers or potential mothers and one of the targets of the new regime \vas the promotion of motherhood (Ibid.). In this manner, women were politicized .. through a notion of common female destiny based on their reproductive capacities·· (Nash 1991 : 161 ). Francoist ideology thus identified women mainly in terms of their roles as mothers whose offspring \vould check the tendency towards declining birth-rates and therefore prevent the ·decline' of Spain (Ibid).
During the Francoist period ( 1939-1975) the view of the family as the primruy social unit of Spanish society was also supported by the Catholic Church. Indeed the State and Church became allies on this matter of motherhood and familial ism. The latter
7 However, even with the achievement of equal rights in law. in practice inequality still characterised the social situation of Spanish women (Nash 1991).
65 ··reinforced the overall conception of woman as the angel del hagar (angel of home)
whose biological and social destiny was motherhood" (Nash 1991: 161 ). \\Fomen 's
·natural destiny" thus fell w·ithin the institutions of family and marriage (Nash 1991 ).
What were the specific policies used to encourage natalism? The first enactment
was the criminalization of both abortion. which had been legalized in Catalonia during
the Second Republic. and the use of contraceptives. Secondly. the family unit was
deemed as more than a social institution. For example, article 22 of the 1945 Fuero de los
Espafioles stipulated that .. the State recognizes and protects the family as a natural and
fundamental institution of the society ... Marriage will be one [for once] and indissoluble.
The state will especially protect large families" (Montero 1998: 184, translation my own).
Within this context Franco ·s legislation retrieved the 1889 Civil Code which confirmed
male authority \Vithin family units in which females held subordinate positions (Nash
1991 ). Under the 1938 Fuero del Trabajo (the major legal statement on work). once
women married they gave up most forms of wage work. For example, "In particular [the
State] ... liberates married women from the workshop and factory" (Montero 1998: 186,
translation my own). In 1941. the government body Sanidad Alaternaf e Injcmril \Vas established. How·ever. '·in the early years of the Franco regime ... specific social policies aimed at [the] welfare of mother and child were less developed than those aimed at the male-headed family" (Nash 1991: 173 ; also see Horn 1991 for a comparison with Italy).
Other legislative measures included family allowances and concessions that were
66 8 allocated particularly to familias numerosas (large families) ( 1943) • In 1948, marriage
prizes were instituted, consisting of ·'a grant given to women workers on marrying as a
compensation for giving up their job. became an additional inducement to marriage'·
(Nash 1991 : 171 ).
Another avenue used to promote familialism was through the Secci6n Femenina
of the Falange part/. Its mission was directly geared towards Spanish women and an
obligatory six months of ·social Service·.
The girls' version ofnational military service was intended as a ~formative· experience. for the girls involved in it and through them for Spanish society as a whole. For six hours per day ... single women and childless widows between the ages 18 and 35 did physical education, took courses in religion. cooking, family and social formation, sewing, domestic science and economy, child care, singing and national syndicalism at the Escuela del Hagar (School of the home) and did volunteer work in offices or hospitals (Shubert 1990: 214-215).
In other words. the training was designed to prepare unmarried \vomen for motherhood
s These \Vere comprised of three categories. The first category included fami lies having four to seven children. the second category incorporated those with eight or more children, and an honorary category was limited to couples with twelve or more children (Nash 1991 ).
9 "The party itself was founded by Jose Antonio [Primo de Rivera] in 1933, and it quickly incorporated the other older Spanish fascist groups within its organization ... The political ideal of the Falange party was Catholic, authoritarian, fascist. During the war it built up its O\m militia". (Crow 1985: 349).
67 10 and political indoctrination (Nash 1991) •
Although education. political propaganda and the Church were used to promote the idea of motherhood as th~ primary social function of \VOmen. fertility rates still declined . There was a slight increase in the birth-rate between 1955 and 1965 (the total fertility rate or TFR was 2. 79 in 1960 and 2.97 in 1965), however this increase coincides with changes in the Spanish economy and the socio-political situation (Nash 1991 ).
Indeed. this time frame is deemed the 'liberalization' period (Jordan 1995) that preceded the ·economic boom' ofthe late 1960s and 1970s (Shubert 1990). As previously mentioned. how·ever. fertility rates continued to decline from the 1970s onward.
Given that the fertility rate decreased rather than increased during the early years of the Franco regime when pronatalism was pushed most strongly. can one then assume that the policies had not been accepted by the members of Spanish society? Or. as Nash asserts. did .. intimate family criteria based on health. household economy and existing living conditions appear to have prevailed in determining personal conduct"? (Nash
1991: 175). If this was the case. and Spanish people were more concerned with everyday family survival rather than \Vith these family-planning policies, what then. were and are the conditions under which Galicians live( d)? Although I explore this question throughout Chapters Five and Six, a discussion of Galician demographic patterns is
10 My project on the fertility decline was funded under Dr. Sharon Roseman's larger SSHRC project on the impact of Spanish women's experiences of the Social Service.
68 useful at this point.
Galicia's Low Fertility Rate and A2:ein!! Population
On the first day of my fieldwork in Lugo, I purchased a copy of the nev..-spaper La
Voz de Galicia which included a special section on fa crisis: "In Galicia, each year there are fevver births. \Vhile each ,year the population gets older. These are two demographic phenomena which preoccupy the government a lot .. (La Voz de Galicia, May 16, 1999: 1, translation my own). Indeed. Galicia currently represents seven percent of Spain's population \Vith a total of 2.812.962 inhabitants (xunta.es 1999). Although rural areas are depicted in most demographers' models as regions with higher rates of fertility (Delgado and Livi-Bacci 1992), this is not the case for Galicia. For example, the total fertility rate
(TFR) for Spain in 1997 was 1.13 whereas Galicia' s was 0.83 (INE I 998). In 1999 the
TFR for Spain \Vas 1.07 (The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2000: A 12), below the European average of 1.45 (Eurostat August 18, 1999), while in Galicia the TFR was 0.80 in 1999
(xunta.es 1999).
1 Since the l8 h century. Galicia has had lower tertiiity rates than Spain as a whole and has been characterized by relatively high levels of children being born to single mothers'' and extensive emigration12 (Bertrand 1992 and Kelley 1991 ). In her explanation
11 For a comprehensive historical overview of Galician demographic patterns see Jean-Rene Bertrand (1992).
12 The lower fertility rate may. ho\vever, be connected to the out-migration practices of young Galicians (see, for example. Massey and Mullan 1984 on the effects of seasonal migration).
69 of villagers· acceptance of single female-headed households in a coastal village in the
province of A Corufi.a, anthropologist Heidi Kelley traces Galician migratory practices
and rates of illegitimacy. which were higher in rural areas, particularly in coastal zones.
Kelley notes that in both Galicia and Portugal.
the high incidence of illegitimacy is closely related to high rates of male emigration and a consequently skewed sex ratio. In Galicia, high ratios of illegitimacy in the iatter half of the 1 l9 h century were associated \Vith a massive male transatlantic emigration; few women and even fewer children participated in this exodus to Latin America (Kelley 1991 : 567).
The pattern of emigration. however, changed along with the incidence of illegitimacy by
In the 1940s, the tide of Galician emigration began to turn away from Latin America and toward northern Europe and North America. Moreover, since the first decades of the century, and especially since the 1940s, Galician women have been emigrating in ever-increasing numbers, and the number of returnees has been growing as well (Ibid.).
Jean-Rene Bertrand estimates that between 1962 and 1974, I 44.500 Galicians emigrated
to various European and South American countries for wage employment ( 1992 ). Thus,
migration patterns have had a long-standing influence over family formation in Galicia.
\Vhile the Galician birth rate has declined, the longevity has increased (La Voz de
Galicia, August 1,1999: 8). It is estimated that by the year 2025, 30 per cent of all
Galicians will be 60 years old or old~r (La Voz de Galicia August 12,1999: 11 ), a
13 See Brettell ( 1985, 1986, and 1988) for shifts in emigration practices and in the occurrences of single mothers in rural Portugal.
70 demographic trend which is depicted in the regional newspapers as being aiarming: ·"Una alarmante envejecimiemo (an alarming ageing)" (El Pro!!reso July 20,1999: 23). It is also estimated that the populations of over ninety municipalities in Galicia \Vill decrease by half over the next ten years (La Voz de Galicia. July 20, 1999: 12). Only one municipality in the province of A Corui'ia is said to have renewed its population in 1998 (El Correo
Galle!!o, August l. 1999). Indeed, based on a recent study. Andres Precedo Ledo
(representing the Galician credit union. the Cai.m de Galicia) stated that '·the declining number of inhabitants and the ageing population which is taking shape in the provinces of
Lugo and Ourense is a critical situation (situacion critica)'' (La Reg:ion, July 20,1999: 30, translation my own). At 15.8 per cent in 1996, the province of Pontevedra had the highest percentage of children under the age offifteen (La Voz de Galicia, June 7, 1999: 3).
Comparati\·ely. the province of A Coruna had 14.3 per cent of children under fifteen,
\\thile Lugo and Ourense. the most agricultural provinces, had 12.7 per cent and 12.2 per cent respectively (Ibid.). Currently. adults over the age of 65 represent 23.8 per cent of the total population in the province of Lugo (Ibid.).
Throughout my field\vork many newspaper articles attested to the ageing population. covering topics from debates over old age pensions to the changing nature of funerals. Given that officials and Galicians in general are concerned with Galicia's aging population. "vhat kind of pronatalist incentives exist? And what child-care facilities are available to parents? What maternity leave and parental leave policies currently exist in
71 Spain? And how do inhabitants of the city of Lugo talk about the government's role in
reproduction?
Assistance for Familias :\'wnerosas (Lam:e Families)
Family allowances and concessions are still allocated to familias nwnerosas in
Spain. although they are different from those administered during the Franco period.
Since 1995. the three categories have been defined as follows: the first category includes
families having three to six children. the second category incorporates seven to nine
children. and the honorary category is limited to couples with ten or more children
(Official Gazette, Boletin Oficial del Estado, Law 8, April 14.1998). In June of 1999. a
total of 10,491 Galician !ami lies were r~ported to benefit from the condition of being
·'large families (jamilias numerosas)". with the majority pertaining to the first category
(La Voz de Galicia, June 1. 1999: 2). In June 1999, only twenty families in Galicia were
registered officially as being part of the honorary category.
Monetary benefits given to parents \Vith relatively larger numbers of children are
mainly for educational and training purposes, transportation, and housing. Familias
numerosas of the first category. those with three to six children, receive a 50 per cent
discount for costs associated with formal schooling, such as tuition and supplies, whereas
those in the second and honora1)· categories are completely exempted from such costs.
And w·hile :?.0 per cent or public transportation costs such as bus, train, and air fairs are covered forfctmilias numerosas of the tirst category,fami/ias numerosas of the second
72 category receive a 40 per cent discount and 50 per cent is given to the honorary category.
10 to 30 per cent of housing quotas are allocated for up to 15 years tofamilias numerosas.
When a child turns 21 y·ears of age, these benefits are withdraw·n. However, if the child is
in university. doing military sen·ice (or the alternative social service), the benefits are extended until they reach the age of26 (La Voz de Galicia. May 16. 1999: 1-3). It is estimated that 15 per cent of all Galician university students are fromfamifias numerosas.
On these financial subsidies. informants who are fromfamilias numerosas said to me that
'·es una mierda .. (literally ··ifs shi t", meaning it's not much).
Matemitv and Parental Leaves
Spain joined the European Economy Community in 1985 and while both maternity and parental leave policies vary between each member state, all must provide a minimum maternity leave of at least 14 weeks to be allocated before, or after birth
(European Economic Community. Article 18, October 19, 1992). Currently. Spanish law provides for 16 w·eeks or maternity leave with 75 per cent of regular paid wages (Report from the Commission, Brussels. March 15. 1999 and Singh 1998: 92). Parental leave also
14 varies according to each member state • In Spain, with parental leave, parents can benefit from a leave of absence for 36 months or they have the option of taking leave from their employment for up to 6 years on a pan-time basis. Parental leave does. however, include
14 Parental leave enables \Vomen and men to interrupt their employment while benefiting from job security as ,,-e[l as financial and social guarantees (see Singh 1998 for a recent review of the policies of member states in the European Union).
73 the maternity leave period. However, a!' Rina Singh notes "[paternity leave] is offered. if
15 at all, for mostly only token periods"' ( 1998: 99) •
Dav Care facilities in Galicia
There is a long trJ.dition in rural Galicia of members of extended family
households assisting par~nts with child-care (see, for example, Kelley 1988 and Roseman
1993). Indeed. informal adoption '.vas common in rural communities (see, for example.
Buechler and Buechler 1981 ). In urban areas, parents can use child-care facilities, which
are either governmental or privately owned, in addition to child-care provided by family
members. An organization of parents called. ·'Preescolar na casa"·. which translated
from the Galician language means ~'home schooling for children of preschool age" was
created because parents living in rural areas of Galicia did not have adequate access to the
16 child-care facilities \vhich are mainly concentrated in urban Galicia •
In the ne\vspaper articles. journalists criticised the regional government's financial
provisions allocated to child care facilities. It was common to read captions such as
15 In 1999, there were no monetary benefits for single, umved, and unemployed mothers. There may, ho\\·ever. be new policies implemented. I was told by an employee at the Conselleria de Familia e Promocion do Emprego, ;\;fuller e Xuremude (Galician for the Ministry of the Family and Promotion ofEmployment, Women and Youth) that they were in the process of dc\·eloping ne'>v pronatalist policies. For example. interestingly. in a recent article in the regional ne\vspaper E! Correa Galle2:o, it was noted that amas de casas (house\vives and/or stay-at-home mothers) in Galicia may soon be receiving pensions of 5.000 pesetos (approximately$ 50 Canadian) each month (El Correa Gallego, June 2 L 2000).
16 Adoption has also become more institutionalized and in contrast to infonnal fosterage and adoption arrangements, the process is now lengthy and expensive.
74 ··xunta de Galicia [regional government] sees day care as a social service and not as a righC (La Voz de Galicia, July 18,1999: 8, translation my own). The Consel!eria de
Familiae Promocion do Emprego. A-fuller e Xuvemude (Ministry of the Family and
Promotion of Employment, Women and Youth, Xunta de Galicia) subsidises fewer than half of the 258 day care centres in Galicia (for children younger than six years of age)
(Ibid.). Seven thousand children attend the Galician day care centres which are predominantly located in the seven major cities in Galicia. Informants often commented that Galicia needs more day care centres in order to fit with the \vorking schedules of mothers. Because of safety standard inspections and the low fertility rate. 74 day care facilities have closed in Galicia since 1997 (Ibid.).
Contraceptive Use
The use of contraceptives was illegal in Spain until 1978 and as social historian
Adrian Shubert explains ...In the late 1970s birth control remained a matter for men"
17 ( 1990: 213) • The adoption of contraceptive methods such as the birth control pilL condoms. IUD. sterilization. and coillls inlerruplus varied according to class. region. and
18 age (Shubert 1990: Ibid. ) • According to a survey done between 1984 and 1985 in which
7.696 women participated from different age cohorts. regions. and classes. it \vas
1 ; The use of contraceptives was. however, legal in some regions of Spain during the Second Republic (see, for example, Nash 1991 ).
18 Also see Schneider and Schneider ( 1995 and 1996) for their description of the process of adoption of contraceptive methods and its relation to class in Villamaura, Sicily.
75 estimated that the majority of \vomen in Spain between the ages of 15 and 44 used no contraceptive method (Riphagen and Lehertl989: 28). Similarly. in anthropologist's
Angie Hart's (1998) ethnography of prostitution in a city in eastern Spain. she states that the use of condoms among mostly middle-aged male clients and female sex \vorkers \vas not common (Hart 1998: 32 and 140-141 ). Although. it is estimated that 51 per cent of young. unmarried adults in Galicia do not use contraceptives (El ProQreso, June 18. 1999:
72). the young people whom I knew in Lugo did talk to me about using contraceptives.
The most common form of contraception among these young people \vas the use of condoms. In contrast to the birth control pilL \.vhich can only be purchased with a prescription through a physician, condoms were more widely available. Condom vending dispensers are located outside of many pharmacies throughout the city of Lugo.
Most young women told me that they had never had a regular gynecological exam.
Furthermore. many \vomen did not use the birth control pill. because they had to go through a medical practitioner for a prescription. Indeed, according to recent statistics. only 35 per cent of Spanish women have gynecological exams done (fNE in La Voz de
Galicia. July 29. 1999). While young people told me that both women and men were responsible for the use of contraceptives, the majority of people who went to Galicia ·s family planning centres (Centros de Orientacion Familiar or COF) were young women.
In 1984. the lnstitlllo Nacional de Ia Salud or !NSALUD (the national health
76 19 service) created family planning centres in Spain • which are the equivalent of the COF
in Galicia which is administered by Sergas (Galicia"s public health service sector).
Psy·chologists. nurses, gynecologists. social \vorkers. and administrative workers are
employed in these centres. In the COF in the city of Lugo, during my field\vork. there
were five full time medical professionals: one psychologist, one nurse. two gynecologists.
and one auxiliary nurse. There \Vere also administrative employees. The family planning
centre provides services to both females and males.
According to COF statistics for the month of June 1999, 47 per cent of the women
who vvent to the COF were bet\veen the ages of 19 and 24: 41 per cent were between the
ages of24 and 34: ten per cent \vere between the ages of 35 and 40; and five per cent of
the women \Vho went the COF were between 41 and 45 or over the age of 45 (COF unofficial records, June 1999). Most of the single younger vvomen who went to the
facility in the city of Lugo had. or were in the process of obtaining a post-secondary education (Ibid.). r was told by a psychologist who worked at the COF that women usually heard about the services of the family planning centre through female friends who had gone. The psychologist told me that this information was indicated on the centre· s registration forms.
The most common reason for going to the COF \vas to acquire oral contraceptives. one variety being the .. day after'" pill. In the month of June in 1999. 59 out
1 q For an overview· of family planning centres in Spain and issues of sexuality, see. for example. Bodoque Puerta ( 1996).
77 of the 121 women who had gone to the COF in the city of Lugo had gone specifically for the birth control pills (Ibid.). However, other women went for reasons such as problems with infertility. diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. \\-"hile others went in order to obtain an abortion. The psychologist with whom I spoke. also told me that he gave counselling to couples about sex related concerns.
During the month of June in 1999. only a handful of men had availed themselves of the services at the COF in the city of Lugo. All of these men had gone to request a vasectomy \vhich was granted to men on the condition that they be 28 years of age or older and/or have a minimum of two children. Likewise. women had to be 28 years of age or older and/or have a minimum of two children in order to be eligible for the pennanent tubal ligation. These surgeries were performed at the local hospital and all of the medical procedures \Vere funded by Sergas (all of this information was provided to me by the psychologist vvho worked at the family planning centre in the city of Lugo).
Act 9 of July 5, 1985 allows abortion in Spain under three circumstances: \Vhen a woman has been sexually violated, when the pregnancy would psychologically and/or physically endanger the life of the woman. and \vhen the fetus has malformations
(Valiente \997: \39). More than 97 per cent of Spanish abortions are performed in private ciinics (El Pais, April 6, \998: 22). Over the course of a ten year period, from
1989 to 1999, 17. 154 young Galician women, most of whom were bet\veen the ages of
20 and 24. were said to have obtained abortions in private clinics (Ibid.). In many regions
78 of Spain such as Galicia. abortions are not allowed in public health centres and are therefore not covered by Sergas. It is estimated that abortions in private clinics can cost an individual anyvvhere from 40.000 pesetas to 500,000 pesetas, depending on the
20 trimester of the pregnancy (Ibid.) . Some of these abortions. are however, eventually reimbursed by the government. depending on the trimester when the abortion is performed (Ibid.).
During my fieldwork. controversy surrounding abortion and especially the RU-
486 abortion pill \Vere frequently reported on in the regional new·spapers. The abortion pill has been approved for use in France since 1988 and was more recently approved in
Germany in 1999. It was estimated that the abortion pill would become available to
Spaniards tO\vards the end of 1999 (La Voz de Galicia, July 8, 1999: 30). While some people in Spain lobbied for the legislative approval of the abortion pilL others. namely members of the Catholic clergy. openly spoke out against it calling the practice of abortion ""/a cultura de fa muerte (the culture of death)"" (La Voz de Galicia. July 15.
1999: 31 ).
Newspaper Depictions of the Crisis Demogrcitica in Galician Newspapers
Nearly every day during my fieldwork, I collected newspaper articles written about Galicia·s current fertility rate. I bought El ProQ:reso and La Voz de Galicia everyday throughout fieldwork and one or the other newspaper usually had information on the
20 In Canadian dollars. approximately$ 400 to $ 5000.
79 ··social crisis ... Galician journalists commonly wrote about the regional government"s. and inhabitants·. opinions about the reasons for the fertility decline as being different.
That is. government and local opinions about the reasons for the fertility decline were presented in opposition to one another. In tum. possible •·solutions.. to remedy .. the problem·· frequently reflected a person's opinion about the reason for the Galician low fertility rate. While representatives of the government were depicted as viewing the
·'social crisis'· in terms of a cultural problem which resulted from people's notions of child-rearing and interpretations of having children. inhabitants were depicted as viewing the ··social crisis.. as being a reflection of the overall current economic situation.
HO\vever. governmental and local inhabitants' opinions about ··ta situacion demogrcljica
(the demographic situation)"· pointed to the same conclusion: that the lo'-v fertility rate coupled with the increasing age of Galicia· s population constituted a crisis.
The pervasiveness of Ia crisis demogrirfica was most often depicted in the newspapers as a disease which needed to be remedied, especially in the interior areas of
Galicia where Ia crisis demogrcljica is especially acute (La Voz de Galicia. July 20.
1999). The goverrunent is implementing .. alglins plans ([Galician for] some plans) .. in order to "poner remedios (remed::l the situation)"' (La Voz de Galicia, July 29. 1999: 9).
And although the President ofthe Ministry of the Family, Lopez Besteiro, remarked that
.. people need to understand that children are investments for the future'·: I, people did not
21 Translated from Gallego: A xenle non comprende que lerfillos e unha inversion dejiauro (La Voz de Galicia, July 27. 1999: 7).
80 agree with the government's diagnosis of the "social crisis" as being "cultural and
psychological .. (La Voz de Galicia. July 27. 1999: 7).
Local Interpretations of the Role of the Government
In contrast to the government discourse. most citizens commented during
interYie\VS \Vith Galician journalists that the low· fertility rate reflected an economic
problem. One interviewee said that even though. ~·Young people are highly skilled[ ... ]
the scarcity of wage employment does not allow them to start their own families and
oftentimes they are required to emigrate to one of the seven major cities in Galicia for
\Vork or abroad"' (La Voz de Galicia, August 8, 1999: 2, translation my O\vn) .. ·'Monetary
incentives are meagre", another person commented while comparing Spain's monetary subsidies to those of France. Germanv.- Belgium... Finland. and Denmark (Ibid.). ··The state barely dedicates 0.4 per cent of the Producto Interior Bruto (PfB) (gross domestic
product) towards the protection of families while in Denmark and Finland. the percentage
is around 4.2 per cenf' ([bid.). The interviewee further added that ·'monetary subsidies
which the Ministry of the Family and Promotion of Employment. Women and Youth
[those forji:unilias numerosas discussed above] offer are the opposite [or meagre in comparison] of our neighbouring communities [countries]" (Ibid). Another common criticism is about the lack of financial incentives. and the Spanish government's ··poor··
tinancial aid for day-care (see above for discussion on day care) (La Voz de Galicia,
August 8, 1999: 2). Similarly. in another newspaper article, a journalist stated that the
81 government help given to one Spanish family with thirty children would equal the fiscal monetary subsidies allocated to one Belgium family \Vith one child (El Correa GalleQo,
Jut:-· 23. 1999: 20).
The Galician Government Position on the Fertilitv Rate
Along with other politicians and demographers, Galicia's president. Manuel Fraga has frequently made public statements to the effect that the low birth rate constitutes a
"social crisis'· (La Voz de Galicia, July 29. 1999: 9). For example in November of 1996. during a conference on Consecuencias de Ia transformaciun demogrcijica (Consequences of the demographic transformation) organized by Ia Fundaci6n Caixa Galicia. Fraga had the following to say:
Either the ageing of the population stops or the alternative is that Galicia \Viii disappear. Spain is converting itself into a historical concept such as classic Rome and the Peninsula wil! return to being occupied by Berbers22 (La Voz de Galicia. August 8. 1999: 2, translation my ovm).
On July 25 ( 1999) during Galicia's National Holiday. St. James Day. and after commemorating local pub Iic figures in a ceremony. Fraga spoke about the region· s current socioeconomic situation and took the opportunity to direct attention to Galicia· s
··social crisis··. stating that ·'the low fertility rate threatens to extinguish our biological
~ 2 Original: Os se pone ji-eno a/ en\'ejecimiento de Ia poblaci6n o ha alrernarim es que Galicia 1/egue a desaparecer. Espana se convierta en un concepto hisrorico como la Rom a c/cisica J · Ia Peninsula \'uelva a ser ocupada por los beberes (La Voz de Galicia, August 8, 1999: 2 in a special section entitled "Gallegos en vias de extincion, Galicians on the route to extinction). Note that Fraga shifts from Gallego to Castilian in some of his public speeches.
82 inheritance'· (La Voz de Galicia. July 26. 1999: 7. translation my own).
One can see then. that although government and citizens' interpretations differ as to \vhy there is a crisis demogr(tjlca. and what the appropriate solutions should be. there is consensus that a problem. or a .. social crisis.. does exist in Galicia. The discursive tactics may differ in that people blame the government for its role in not providing better monetary subsidies and for its role in not being able to create more wage employment. while the government attests that people need to see children as investments for the future.
Both Fraga and the President of Galicia·s Ministry of the Family and Promotion of Employment Women and Youth. Manuela Lopez Besteiro. present the demographic situation as being complicated and as embedded with various psychological and cultural factors (La Voz de Galicia, July 27.1999: 7). Lopez Besteiro suggests that Galicians need to view children as investments for the future (Ibid.). Fraga and Lopez Besteiro ·s meaning of the '·social crisis'· becomes clear through their discursive tactic of linking the Galician fertility rate to national and familial inheritance: that a nation is not strong without strength in numbers. Moreover, by interpreting the fertility decline as being an inherently
Galician problem and one which is connected to Galician child-rearing practices and vie\VS of parenting, (i.e. that ·'people need to understand that children are investments for the future··. as suggested by Lopez Besteiro ). officials are attempting to lessen the concern that Galicians have with respect to the economic situation, which inhabitants vie\V as
83 being one of the main causes of the --social crisis... Thus. Galicia's governmental
representatives· acts of referring to the everyday experiences and activities of citizens.
using familiar language in their explanations of the reasons for the low fertility rate is a
clear example of Herzfeld's cultural intimacy (I discuss this in the follo\ving chapter).
That is. the representatives of the region's government referred to the ··social crisis"' as
being a ··cultural'· phenomenon and one which is linked to citizens· viewpoints about the
purpose of children and their parenting strategies. In this way, representatives of the
government underscore citizens' accountability for the 10\v fertility rate. while
dov..-nplaying the role of the current economic situation. The pervasiveness with which
journalists covered the ··social crisis·· would suggest that government ofticials had at least
partially received \vhat they wanted: that it become a Galician ·problem'.
Conclusions
Although I mainly focused on current concerns with fertility in Galicia. a brief
overview of pronatalist policies points to the situation as being neither new nor unique to
Spain. By providing historical and present-day institutional discourses on fertility and
reproduction more generally. one can see that institutional responses to the declining
fertility· rate have been and are often couched in terms of nationalism and the body
politic. Thus \Ve see that Spaniards are not inherently gregarious, as one Canadian journalist put it. but rather that acts of drawing on demographic statistics are tactics used in order to demonstrate that there exists a current ··social crisis" in Galicia (also see Urla
84 1993 for her discussion of the Basque use of statistics for political purposes). In short,
Galicia's "social crisis" consists of a combination of an ageing population and 'low' fertility rates.
Galician journalists depicted the regional government and citizens as having different interpretations for the low fe1iility rates. However, by comparing this chapter to the subsequent one (Chapter Four) on child-rearing practices, similarities between institutional discourses about the fertility rate and everyday citizens' discourses on the
' making' of children are highlighted.
85 Chapter Four: Notions of Child-Rearin!l and Parenthood
While I was still living in one of the university's residences. I was im·ited by a few students living on the same floor as myself to go to the movie theatre with them. We decided to see American Historv X. Upon our arrival. \Ve purchased a large bag of popcorn to share bet\veen us. and sat dm.:vn to watch the movie. The movie graphically depicted neo-Nazism in the United States through the experiences of one man·s participation in a neo-Nazi group. Once the movie had ended, \ve had ample opportunity to talk about it as \Ve \valked back to the residence. We discussed our impressions of the film. but what took me by surprise \vas the direction the conversation took. I wrote in my journal that night:
June 17/99
We didn't discuss problems of racism or violence. We didn't discuss the plot of the movie. I am a little shocked. Their discourse centred on \Vho was to blame for the main character's behaviour. .. Es el culpa del padre. Sf. el tiene Ia culpa. It is the father"s fault. Yes. he is to blame [for the main character's behaviour]"". they commented.
Why. I later asked myself, did they seek to place blame on someone. namely the father. for the main character's behaviour? Why did they not discuss some of the meanings that I saw as embedded in the film? For example. what did the film 'say' about estar
Americana ·a (being American). a question that I thought with certainty they \Yould
86 1 address • As l was to later discern. however, the theme of parents being held accountable for their children· s negative actions is an omnipresent discourse among people I talked with in Lugo. one which is connected to child-rearing practices. Although both parents are responsible for raising their children. the example of my friends· interpretation of the movie American Historv X raises an important point which is discussed in this chapter: their emphasis on a parent's responsibility for the main character's negative behaviour highlights key notions of parent-child relations in an urban. post-Franco Spanish context.
Most informants. both those with and those without children. told me that mothers had the main role in ·properly· preparing and educating young children. Moreo\'er. mothers were most often blamed for their child's perceived failures in school or for their child's display of ·negative' behaviour. A common response to children's. and youth·s. displaying negative characteristics was the idea that mothers did not spend enough time with their children. However. a child's success in school and '\veil mannered· behaviour which included, for older youth such as university students. the display of mature and responsible personal characteristics. was not necessarily associated \Vith their mothers having ·properly· raised them. Rather successes \vere attributed to a youth· s personal abilities and skills (Collier 1997, Chapter Four; and Gulevich 1995. Chapter Three. note the same pattern in Andalusia and Ourense respectively; also see di Leonardo I 987 on the
1 In my fieldnotes. I have many examples of comments made by individuals in Lugo about Galicians. particularly the youth. becoming more Americana which is interpreted as being a negative change. Ironically, these conversations were made in the presence of such commodities as Coca Cola beverages and Nike T -shirts.
87 \vork of kinship, or w·hat she calls '"kin work'" and the oftentimes conflicting
responsibilities which arise for \Vomen engaged in the work of kinship. household and
child care. and work in the labour market).
Individuals in Lugo talked about people not wanting to take on the many
responsibilities involved in having a child because, as most explained. "Somas egoista
(we are selfish)"'. I explore informants' invoking of el egoismo (selfishness) as a main
reason for the low fertility· rate in the following chapter. However. here I examine
informants' strategic and essentialistic use of verbs in reference to child-rearing practices as these relate to notions of child-rearing. For example, parents are responsible to prepararlos (prepare them [children]). educarlos (educate them [children]). cuidarlos
(take care or raise them [children]). and mantenerlos (literally maintaining them
[children)). In addition. parents are responsible to help lajuventud (young people or youth) reach an equilibrio (balance) which is linked to Ia madurez (maturity).
l begin this chapter by exploring local level interpretations of parent-child relations as they connect to individuals' perceptions of parenthood. r situate my data within the existing literature. by dra\ving upon anthropologist Jane Fishburne Collier's
( 1997). and Spanish sociologist [nes Alberdi 's ( 1999). analyses of shifting parent-child relations in Spain as these interconnect with social constructions of child-rearing practices. \Vhereas Collier emphasises the shifts in parenting by focusing on parental viewpoints. I also focus on notions of parenting articulated by members of Generation
88 "75. I then tum to what Collier (1997) previously recognised as the economically, and
emotionally. competing interests between mothers and their children. Oftentimes. a
mother has to choose bet\veen either achieving economic independence through wage
employment outside of the home, and spending time '·preparing'·. "educating"'and
establishing emotional bonds (lccos) with young children at home. Being a stay-at-home
mother often leads to a situation in \vhich a woman becomes economically dependent on
her partner. \vhile she also relinquishes ambitions for a career outside of the home. I examine the tensions that this divergence creates for mothers and what influence this may have on young, childless women·s perceptions of motherhood. In addition, I explore young people's conceptions of parenthood as these relate to their interpretations of responsibility (responsabilidad) and liberty (liberrad).
In order to better understand the Spanish and Galician government's concern with repopulating Galicia (discussed in Chapter Three) and in order to better situate informants· concern with reproducing ·good' children. towards the end of this chapter. l employ Herzfeld"s (1997) notion of cultural intimacy. I no\v tum to Collier·s interpretation of the shifts in parent-child relations.
Shifts in Parent-Child Relations
In Collier's ( 1997) ethnography on the making of'·modem subjectivity··· in the
Andalusian village of Los Olivos (pseudonym), she examines changes in family relationships based on a comparison of data collected in the 1960s and in the 1980s.
89 Through a focus on the shift from villagers· invoking of meeting social obligations in the
1960s to their emphasis on thinking for oneself in the 1980s. Collier links \vider socioeconomic changes in the 1970s in Spain--such as the impact of urbanization and women·s increased participation in wage employment--to changing parenting strategies.
She argues that parents in the 1980s \Vere much more ··child-centered·· in comparison to parents in the 1960s: "Whereas parents in the l960s seemed to ignore their children unless a child \Vas misbehaving. the parents I met in the 1980s seemed focused on helping their children get ahead·· (Collier 1997: 160). Collier continues that the ··child- centeredness'· of parents in the 1980s reflects the transformation in the meaning and importance of schooling. Collier argues that there has been a shift from children being viewed as ··parental heirs to parental projects·· (Collier 1997: 153-176). She notes that the shifts in parenting strategies among villagers (and emigrants) from Los Olivos result from the changing determinants of wealth and financial security. In the 1960s. young people's future status was determined by land inheritance. By the 1980s. formal education became a necessity once a shift occurred from agriculture to wage employment in the urban centres. In Collier's words:
When children· s tutures [in the 1960s] appeared to depend on how much inheritance their parents could provide, parents had to prevent their children from behaving in \vays that might prejudice their chances of marrying someone of equal or greater inheritance... In the 1980s. in contrast when children's futures appeared to depend on their own achievements. parents had to identify. and then to fosteL each child's unique abilities. Instead of ·subjugating' their
90 children. parents had to ·prepare· them for adult life (Collier 1997:154f.
The sacritices that parents make have also changed. Although her informants criticized
the mass media for its negative influence on children and young adults, Collier explains
that it is ··less the corrupting influence of ·modern· culture. or parents' failure to
discipline their children, than a shift in parent"s perceptions of what their children needed
to succeed in adult life'' (Collier 1997: 154 ). namely formal education.
The conversations that I had with parents in Lugo correspond with Collier"s
emphasis on parents wanting to eclucarlos and to preparar children by giving all that they
could to them (financially and emotionally) and by ensuring that their children had fom1al
educations which. ideally. would permit them to compete successfully in the job market.
For example. I asked Delia, a housewife with three grown children between the
ages of21 and 24. about her interpretation ofSpain's demographic situation. She did not
hesitate to tell me that parents are to blame for the 'low·· fertility rate. She said that
parents are ..egoista .. because nO\vadays they only want a few children in order to dar .
.. give.. e\'erything that they can to them to ensure their children a better future. I asked if she could explain further and she said that parents vvant to "educarlos. raise and educate children .. properly and this necessitates money and a formal education for their children which in tum means that parents can only have a few if they want to give everything to
2 Indeed, many informants in the city of Lugo told me that one· s parenting must accommodate each child· s personality.
91 them. As I discuss in Chapter Six. however. people recognize that formal schooling does
not guarantee a job. let alone a stable one. Yet. as Collier points out. ··they also recognize
that failure to obtain schooling almost certainly guaranteed a bad one Uob ]"' (Collier
1997: 165).
People whom I talked \Vith stressed the importance of preparing children for
today·s market driven economy. As the follo'vving vignettes also highlight. ho,vever.
people argued that they could not have many children, if any at aiL because they would
not be able to spend the time that was necessary to educarlos nor \Vould they be able to afford material commodities. such as fa ropa de marca (name-brand clothing) which children needed. it \Vas interpreted, to fit in with others.
Parents· Notions of Child-Rearing
Maria and her husband own a private academy in the city of Lugo in which many parents enroll their young children for remedial summer classes. Pablo, Maria ·s son. was tive years old at the time of the interview. At 34 years of age. Maria worked at the academy full time while her mother looked after Pablo during the day \Vhile both of his parents worked at the academy. Maria. however. spent the first two years of her son's life with him at home.
Maria told me that one should have a stable life (estabilidad) prior to ha\·ing a child. She explained to me that a person has to have completed her or his education and have been employed at a stable job for a significant amount of time before having a
92 child. Maria continued that "'What happens, i.:; that you have to be logical. You have to be
mature. You have to know ho\v to take care of a child (mcmtenerlo ). A father or mother or
someone else has to know what it is [to raise a child] (tener clara lo que es)". Maria
further told me that .. If the mother is not in the house the first few years of the child"s life.
it is not a good situation. Noes \'iable (It is not possible). If you \vant your child to be
well (que tu hijo estit bien). a mother has to be home. You have to be home to protect the
child and the first two years [for the child] are the most crucial of its life'·. Maria added
that during the first two years of Pablo ·s life she \vas alone \Vith him. not having "vorked
outside of the home . .. And I was alone with him. everything for him. I \\·as a mother at
home. nothing more ( Y fire sola con el. todo el, y. }ire Ia madre de casa y puntar·. I asked
Maria why she thought that staying at home with her son for the first fev.· years of his life
was important to her. She responded that she needed to in order that she be able to .. raise
him and make a man out of him (criar!o. !weer w1 hombre dee/)''.
Maria continued explaining to me that she and her husband would have had more children if they could. Ho\vever. had she and her husband have been able to have more children. she said that she \VOuld not have wanted more than two or three because "'a child
has needs. Pablo, for example, already needs to have Ia ropa de marca [tugging at her
O\Vn name brand clothes]. It gets very expensive. Besides a person cannot have many children because they have to spend time with them and raise them".
That parents should ·properly' educate their children is perhaps best illustrated
93 through Maria's critique of\',;hat she perceived to be large families in rural areas w·here
'·the eldest raise the youngest"·. Although it is interesting that Maria· s conceptions of rural areas as regions always having higher levels of fertility (see Schneider and Schneider
1995 and 1996 ). that she mentioned this in relation to her argument that children who are raised by children are not able to compete in the market economy because of their ·tack· of developed skills and abilities echoes many informants' views on the importance of parenting and on the possibility of a failed ·'parental project'".
HO\vever, as I discuss below. Maria is not alone in her view of the importance of child-rearing and parental influences over children. and specifically mothers· responsibility for the well-being of their child or children.
In her study of socioeconomic changes and interrelated shifts in family relationships in Los Olivos. Collier argues that parents in the 1960s had to ··subjugate·· their children ··to preYent them from harming themselves physically or socially·· (Collier
1997: 175). By the 1980s. ··parents had to provide their children with the nutritional and educational opportunities they needed to ·prepare' themselves for earning a living··
([bid.( My informants in Lugo city emphasized that parents could harm their children
3 However. Collier continues to explain that in "neither period did pare nts have to \VOITJ' about harming their children by failing to provide proper ·care··· (Collier 1997: 175). Note the distinction here bet\veen generalised public criticism of mothers· child care practices versus public criticism of the outcome of particular children. \Vhereas Collier argues that public criticism of child-rearing practices was common in Los Olivos. individual parents \Vere not necessarily criticised for a particular child's outcome. as \Vas the situation in the city of Lugo.
94 emotionally if they did not provide the proper care for their children \vhich included spending time with them. Although informants such as Maria and Delia did talk to me about the importance of ·'preparing'' and ··properly educating'' children for future wage employment. they also talked about parents·. specifically mothers·. responsibility for their children ·s failures. Although children \Vere socially· evaluated based on their skills and abilities in school and in finding wage employment (see Collier 1986: and 1997). both the government. for its role in not alleviating the high unemployment rate. and parents were also held responsible for young people's ·delayed· transitions to adulthood and in reaching an equilibria (a balance).
Olvida. for example. is a cleaner in her late forties and is married to ajzmcionario, gO\·emment ~mployee. \Vith whom she has a 22 year old son. Olvida thinks that young people are having too much fun and explained to me that parents today are teaching their children how to be egoista (selfish or self-centered). Olvida told me that nowadays children "nojctlra nada. are not in need of anything". The grown children are used to getting everything that they want which makes them \Vant to be well established before settling down and starting a family: "Tienen /o que quieren y no maduran ran como antes
(They have what they \Vant and do not mature like before)''. Olvida \Vent on to say that because of the child-rearing practices of her own generation that her son's generation. "es mucho mcis marerialista (is much more materialistic)" and. she continued ·'they do not mature as fast as her generation. son mcis inmaduros (they are more immature)".
95 Carlos is a 36 year old from Lugo and a co-ov.:ner of a popular restaurant
frequented by university students. Although he has been with his girlfriend for 18 years.
Carlos does not want to have children. His reasons for not wanting children centre on his
··mtedo de tener un hijo (fear in having a child)... He fears that. in having a child. he
would not be able to spend enough time 'vVith him or her. Carlos also fears that the child
\vould later not tell him of his or her suffering if they do not have "Ia ropa de marca
(name-brand clothingr· and this. he explains, \VOuld hurt the child and himself for having disappointed him or her. Comparing his own generation to younger ones. Carlos told me that Ia juvenwd (young people or youth) are increasingly egoist a (seltish) and immature because of the lack of ·quality' time spent \Vith their parents. Carlos further explained that if children did not spend enough time \Vith their parents. they developed superticial qualities~ . While insisting that he is not machista. he suggested that more mothers needed to stay at home to care for their children.
The Ps,·chologisation of Parenting:
In addition to inhabitants of Lugo themselves talking about notions of child- rearing and parenting. scholarly or scientific opinions about parenting practices were also frequently depicted in the mass media.
In a lengthy article published in the Spanish newspaper El Pais, on ·' fa generaci6n de Ia !lave (the generation of the (latch] key)'·, Mayka Sanchez (1998), a Spanish
· ~Collier also notes that both villagers and emigrants from Los Olivos commonly blamed ·modern· culture for corrupting children (Collier 1997: I 53).
96 journalist. writes about the psychological implications for children who go home after school to empty houses w·hile their parents are still away at work. In the article. Sanchez outlines psychiatric opinions on the reasons for young children's. and adolescents'. problems in school and who most often only ·'live to be with his or her pandil/a [group of friendsr (El Pais. April 6.1998: 23. translation my own). Because nobody is home when the child arrives from schooL a series of emotional instabilities manifest in the child
(inestabi/idad afectivo-emociona[) such as the displaying of rebellion. unndiness. or feelings of isolation and loneliness. sadness, depression, and abandonment (Ibid.). These problems can develop in a child because, one psychiatrist argues, ·'he or she does not feel cared for and because nobody taught them how to love" (Ibid .. translation my own).
Young anorexic females or alcoholic males can be symptomatic of feelings of depression and loneliness for as one psychiatrist concluded. ·'They feel alone'' (Ibid .. translation my
0\Vn). Another psychiatrist interviewed for Sanchez's article said that parents need to establish their priorities: .. When one has a child. life changes radically and one needs to establish their priorities.. ([bid .. translation my own). In addition. one psychiatrist adds.
·'The function of educating a child should not be delegated to other people. whether grand-parents. uncles. or baby sitters. nor should it be the school's responsibility.. (Ibid .. translation my own). Hovvever. all ofthe professionals interviewed also recognized that
.. To knovv hovv to love is not easy because it requires selflessness, sacrifices. understanding. and dedication .. (Ibid .. translation my O\vn). Thus, the importance of
97 spending time \Vith one's child. so frequently discussed among informants in Lugo, is cited in the public media as also being connected to the notion of parental responsibility for children· s psychological well-being and for children· s displaying of negative behaviours.
However. as Alberdi ( 1999) argues:
Social pressures which wield to the psychological needs of young children increasingly affect the psychological security of mothers over that of their children since the idea of abandonment is always potentially present and is used to explain any problem or difficult situation in which the child may find him or herself (Alberdi 1999: 153, translation my O\Nn).
Informants· comments on child-rearing and on the responsibility of parents for their children's perceived egoismo and more generally. for children·s failures and psychological ·\veil-being'. raise several questions. For example, \vhere does this idea of needing to spend a certain amount of time with one's child in order to ·properly" educarlos come from? And why are mothers particularly responsible for their children· s perceived negati \·e beha ,·iour?
The Mother-Child Bond
In her recent book focusing on contemporary Spanish family patterns, Alberdi
( 1999) outlines notions of child-rearing in which she describes the conceptual construction of the process of mothers and children establishing bonds (/a::os). She states that the impo11ance placed on "the bond bet\veen mother and child'' is relatively new.
98 having developed in the t\ventieth century with the "psychologising of family
relationships·· (Alberdi 1999: 150, translation my own). She further notes that:
Since the t\ventieth century. we have been socialised in developed countries with that type of domestic ideal (the image of the family continually together with the children surrounding the mother]. Present-day women have to ansv,:er to the introduction of psychological concerns about the need to make the bonds between a mother and her children more profound. And \\·hen they work outside of the home and leave their children in child care facilities. in the care of a family member. or a paid child care \Vorker. it is to these ideal [family] images that \VOmen must respond (Alberdi 1999:151, translation my 0\Vn. emphasis original).
Similarly to Alberdi. in her study of masculinity and sexuality in a hostess club in
Tokyo, Japan. anthropologist Anne Allison's (1994) discusses the strong emotional bonds
formed within the mother and son dyad. Indeed. many Japanese men explained to Allison
that they had difficulty being sexually intimate with their wives because of their
relationships with their own mothers and the importance placed on married \vomen's maternal role in the household. For instance. ·•rt wasn' t cheating [to have sex with a sex
\Vorkerj since he thought of his wife as mother. which meant that sex with her would be
incest"" (Allison 1994: 11 2). Allison described that ··women [in Japan] have come to center their mothering on fewer offspring, in some ways tightening the bond bet\veen child and mother.. (Allison 1994: 11 0). Allison also locates this emphasis on a strong emotional bonds between mothers and their children. specifically sons, in a twentieth century context. Specifically, she places it w·ithin broader industrial changes,
99 urbanization. and the intensification of the educational process which "has molded
mothers into educational supporters. thereby increasing their children's reliance on them ..
(!bid.). Allison also notes that under these socioeconomic circumstances in Japan. men
5 spend more time outside of the home • w·hile \vomen spend more time inside the home
\vith their child or children, further strengthening the mother-child bond.
In her introduction to a recent edited volume. anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod
( 1998) refers to the phenomenon of the importance of mothering in the context of Islamic countries. Her poststructuralist analysis and critique of what she calls the " politics of
modernity.. is insightful because of her reminder of the interplay between the social construction ofthe body and political agendas. Abu-Lughod critically explores the link between ideas and practices, specifically relating to \vomen \Vhich can be considered to be
.. modern.. . The forms of modernization which involved the '·remaking ofv•.- omen .. (Abu-
Lughod 1998: 6) in the Midd!e East began at the turn of the century and continued well into the first halfofthe t\ventieth century. The politics of modernity are those which
European colonies .. implanted'' and/or which emerging local elites in Islamic countries adopted in order to .. modernize·' their nation (Ibid.).
The .. professionalization of house\vi,·es, the ·scientizing' of child rearing. women·s drafting into the nationalist project of producing good sons, the organization into nuclear households governed by ideals of bourgeois marriage. and even the
Many men have to travel long distances to their work because they live outside of the immediate city area due to the increase in urbanization (Ibid.).
100 involvement in new educational institutions" (Abu-Lughod 1998: 9) were all part of the process of modernization. Indeed, as historian Omnia Sharky ( 1998) notes in the same volume. ·'the sphere of women \Vas localized as a sphere ofbackwardness to be reformed. regenerated. and uplifted for the benefit of the nation·· (as cited in Abu-Lughod 1998: 10).
As the articles in the edited volume address, during the modernization ohvomen·s domesticity (see especially Najmabadi and Sharky) "young Egyptian \vomen were facing: how to reconcile duties to nation. God. and family·· (as cited in Abu-Lughod 1998: 13 ).
Similarly. during the Franco Regime ( 1939-1975) in Spain, women were politically redefined in terms of their roles as wives and mothers (see especially Nash
1991 ). The young university women whom I knew· in Lugo. \vho are being socialized in the post-Franco context. have also been raised in households by mothers \vho \vere socialized during the Franco Regime. HO\v do young women reconcile what are oftentimes perceived as conflicting goals of motherhood and wage employment? And what impact do these have on their interpretations of motherhood?
Conflicts between Professional Emplovment and Motherhood
··The compatibility betw·een work and family is very difficult and young men and women solve it by having fewer children"'. writes Alberdi ( 1999: 149). Young female informants in the city of Lugo recognized that to have a child meant that a woman would have to take time off from her employment. if she \Vas employed. in order to properly raise the child. In other \.VOrds. a woman would have to '·sacrifice" her O\vn employment
101 aspirations for that of her child"s needs to be educated and loved. Moreo\·er. staying at
home meant that a mother would become economically more dependent on her husband.
a situation which was most often perceived by young women and their mothers as being
negative. Regardless of these emotional and economical sacrifices, many young female
informants nevertheless expressed feelings of wanting to have a child or children in the
future: although they did not elaborate on how one could reach a balance between
personal career ambitions and the responsibilities involved in raising a child.
Collier (I 997. especially in Chapter Four) also describes the incompatibility
bet\veen the economic and emotional needs ofyoung children and those of their mothers.
She also argues that mothers in Los Olivos in the 1960s frequently talked about their
sacrifices for the family and their subordination to their husbands: however. she did not
perceive women to have been subordinate to men during this time. Rather, Collier argues
that wives had more economic security and personal autonomy in the 1960s than young
women did during her second visit in the 1980s (Collier 1997: 143). Children·s need for
formal schooling increased the workload for mothers in the 1980s (Collier 1997: 170).
\Vomen who gre\V up in the 1960s who later had children in the 1980s were caught in a transition. \Vhereas. as chiidren and teenagers. women 1.vho were raised in the 1960s participated in their natal household by performing chores and other responsibilities. they remained solely responsible for their own household chores in the 1980s in order that
102 6 their children could concentrate on their studies (Collier 1997: 170) • Collier is therefore
arguing that a contlict existed betv.rcen mothers· and children's interests in the 1980s
(lbid.)i. She ·wTites that:
Rather. it was through encouraging daughters, as well as sons, to become economically independent that mothers endorsed the vision of responsible maturity encouraged by people· s participation in the wider national market for jobs and commodities--a vision that could not be realized by mothers who gave up paying jobs in order to stay at home with their children (Collier 1997: 171 ).
Collier concludes that the conflict between \vorking for pay and being a ·good· mother
\Vas nev.; to women in Los Olivos in the 1980s. writing that:
[n the 1960s. the villagers [met seemed to evaluate mothers less on the quality of motherly care they provided than for the inheritances they accumulated ... [n the 1980s, however. a mother could not leave her children alone all day without incurring condemnation. Once children needed ·preparation· more than inheritances, ·good mothers· had to provide their children with the individual attention that each child needed to develop his or her unique abil ities (see Doumanis 1983. 107 cited in Collier 1997: 171).
6 Allison argues that a similar situation exists in Tokyo where mothers are intensely involved in the ir son ·s education and (male) children are not expected to perform household chores (Allison 1994: 112-113 ).
7 Similarly. anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo (1987) argues that conflicts arise for women who juggle bet\veen work responsibilities which include child care, work in the labour market, and the work of kinship. Di Leonardo, for example. \VTites that the tension created between women's work responsibilities '"helps to confound the self interested/ altruism dichotomy. forcing us from an either-or stance to a position that includes both perspectives .. (di Leonardo 1987: 442).
103 The above discussion points to both Collier·s (1997: 153-176) interpretation of the shift in parent-child relations. -~from heirs to parental projects·· (from inheritance to education) and to Alberdi's interpretation ofthe shift in vie\vs of children, -~es mucho nuis w1 conswno que una inversion. [nowadays children are viewed] more in terms of a commodity as opposed to an investmenC (Alberdi 1999: 147. translation my own). This investment often involves a mother sacrificing her O\Vn career aspirations to focus on preparing her children for their successful careers. These shifts in viewpoint affect the time that people invest in thinking about having a child. \Vhen to have a child. and how many to have. As both Collier and Alberdi highlight. factors weighed during the decision making process centre on notions of the emotional and economic responsibilities involved in having a child.
Through this examination. one can see then that local child-rearing practices that focus on children· s psychological well-being--\vhich require that a mother spend time with their young children in order to educate and nurture them--fits with Collier's description of the shift in Los Olivos in the 1980s to child-centeredness. The weight placed on the importance of parenting and on having las ideas clara (clear ideas) of what is involved in having a child is explored below· in my examination of young university students· views of parenthood. I particularly focus on young female informants· talking about the tension bet\veen w·age employment and motherhood.
104 Youth Perceptions of Parenthood
Echoing Maria on the importance of having las ideas clara. many university students whom I got to know well stressed the responsibility involved in having a child.
The notion of Ia responsabilidad involved in having a child is explored by Alberdi:
The meaning of responsibility for parents is intensif)'ing. The fundamental basics of the social norms have changed ... Obligations are increasing and children's rights enlarging. above all those concerning a better education and less discipline (Alberdi 1999: 146-147. translation my own).
Alberdi further explains that child-rearing is considered to be ··not only about taking care of a child. feeding the child and educating the child. ft is also necessary to lo\·e the child and to insure the child· s psychological well-being'· (Alberdi 1999: 14 7. translation my own). Alberdi continues that ·'both fathers and mothers are increasingly held responsible for the emotional stability of their children.. (Ibid.).
Throughout field\vork. I found myself questioning what young people meant by responsabi!idad, especially in the context of those who went to university on a full -time basis but also had wage employment on a part-time basis. Did balancing between both work-related. and other obligations not require one to be responsible? ··\\' hat strikes me however"·. I wrote one night in July of I 999:
is that numerous people that I met who had jobs--some or them very demanding jobs--or people who were in school studying for exams. described starting a family as an overwhelming responsabil idad and yet they worked and went to schooL sometimes simultaneously. What do they mean by responsabi/idad? There seems to be a big difference between
105 being responsible for oneself and being responsible for someone else, namely a child. But do [notions] of responsibility vary according to age and gender, and if so. how? Could the idea of losing a part of'"['. a part of one's identity upon parenthood play a role in family planning decision making? Is one· s identity seen as changed and possibly lost. replaced by T , mother, or ·r father. and therefore less of anT as an individual person within a family and society but more in terms of a role. parenthood? That is. when one makes this transition in the life stage. is there a sense of loss of freedom and identity? No one came right out and said this but this is \vhat I speculate, especially if one considers the stress put on the importance of raising a child as many informants highlighted ... The multiple ·subjectivities·, although a valid concept appears to have little room in Lugo where a great deal of essentialisation takes place. essentialisation about the ·proper· mentalidad[mentality] one '·needs.. prior to having a child. the age at which one can entertain ideas about having a child, and which gender plays more of a role in the child's upbringing, namely women. Furthermore, seldom does one fit into more than one life cycle stage ... I \vonder if men can continue going to bars with male friends? Based on conversations with men. they seem to think that once married and with children. /ibertad [liberty] is taken away. How much of this is accurate? It seems to me that along with the shift in one·s life cycle comes a shift in identity. a loss of an aspect of ·r and the inheritance of another one upon parenthood.
What follows is a discussion of some of the themes that I struggled to understand during tield\\·ork. These themes include young people's notions of responsabilidad and liberwd in relation to their interpretations of parenthood.
106 Young Single Women and the [nterplav bet\Veen Responsabilidad and Lihertad
June 21/1999
7:58 A M. I hear a knock on the door. My roommate turns over and puts the pillow over her head. I slO\vly move myself 5 to the door. --Hola A.mcmdiiia! Bueno. Vamos a co1-rer. Okay. We're going to go for a jog··. 5 minutes later [ find Alba outside stretching... On our way back to the residence, \Ve \valk by a crowd of students. several young \VOmen are smoking cigarettes. Alba tells me that they are on their way to VvTite exams. I comment to her that a lot of young women smoke. She tells me that this is because they are not as responsible as ourselves. We laugh. I asked her why she thought vvomen smoked. She replied because "Tenemos mucho mcis de libertad. we have much more freedom ... --It"s a form of rebellion (rebeli6n)'", she continued. She proceeded to explain to me that a short time ago, women were not permitted to smoke openly in public. no\v they are. Even though women know the consequences of smoking, Alba 9 explained. especially while on the birth control pill • they continue to smoke because we no\V can, we have more Iibertad.
As indicated above in the excerpt taken from my fieldnotes. although Alba talked about women· s new Iibert ad, prevailing social responsibilities still influence the behaviour of vvomen. Child-rearing is considered by my informants to be primarily a mother· s responsibility. Gulevich has noted that in the Galician city ofOurense. ··women are expected to de\·ote themselves primarily to the needs of home and family. and to defer
8 The diminutive --ina .. which friends in Galicia often added to my name is a Galician feminine form of affection versus the Castilian '·ira··.
q On the use of contraception among young people, see the previous chapter.
107 their ov.·n personal needs" (Gulevich 1995: 130-131 ). Moreover. as [ explore in subsequent chapters. \VOmen are subject to criticism when they are seen as over- identifying or over-participating in leisure activities in public spaces ...Public criticism plays an important role in the stmggle over gender roles'·. Gulevich notes. ··particularly for young women. In generaL young men are not subjected to the same degree of criticism as are young women. mainly because they have a much wider range of acceptable behavior·· (Gulevich 1995: 146). This suggests that there is a restriction on women·s spatial and conceptual freedom (liberrad) of movement. the latter reflecting a tension felt between the notions of sacrificio and egoismo (see Gulevich 1995. especially Chapter
Four for a discussion of restrictions on \Vomen's spatial mobility in the city ofOurense).
This tension between sacrificio and egoismo is illustrated by Collier when she notes that in the I 980s. women in Los Olivos \vere experiencing a new tension between earning wages and becoming mothers (Collier 1997: 153-176). which I also discussed abo\·e. In addition. Alberdi suggests that:
One must also consider what the goals of young people [in Spain] are. above alL those of women. One must also consider women· s aspirations v-.•ith respect to education. professional formation. and wage employment. All of these aspirations and goals compete enormously \vith maternity and child-rearing (Alberdi 1999:149. translation my own).
During my O\Vn research, for example, a female student in her mid tw·enties explained that Spain· s birth rate is low because:
108 We are egofsw [she said laughing]. No. no. I think that people want fewer children because the economic situation does not allo·.v it. Nowadays. married people work. he works. and she \VOrks. This is normal. no?. that they both ·work. And I think that the woman is not ready to leave her \VOrk and her life or the life she wants. She can't go out anymore no? To have a child. means you have to raise them. If you have a child. you have the responsibility to knO\v this. and ala. you thought you \vere alone but now you have this child. A child has a ton of needs, no?, and costs a ton of money ... a lot of expenses.
Although in this chapter I have focused on mothers' roles in child care. especially for
10 young preschool aged children. fathers· roles are also important •
Young: Simzle Men and the Interplav between Responsabilidad and Libertad
Based on interviews with young Spanish people, Alberdi states that '·for young men [in Spain]. the idea of having a child is not very attractive. The sy·mbolic importance of liberty [liherlad] coupled \vith one's independence contradict ideas of stability and responsibility that accompany paternity" (Alberdi 1999: 147).
The young men w·hom I talked \Vith did recognize the responsibility involved in raising a child. responsibilities that go beyond the child's material \Vants and needs. As
Alberdi ( 1999) and Collier (1997) noted. hO\vever. men's and \VOmen's vie\vs of child- rearing responsibilities differed as did their interpretations of parenthood. For example. in
lti And while informants. in general. did not mention fathers' responsibilities to their young children, I often observed fathers interacting \Vith their older children which I explore in the following chapter. Indeed. in anthropologist Matthe\v Gutmann's ( 1996) study of gender identities in Mexico City, he draws a contrast bet\veen \Vhat he could observe of fathers' involvement with their yo ung children and what people said about men· s involvement in child-rearing practices.
109 my conversation \Vith Manolo, a 22 year-old university student who worked part-time at
one of the university's residences in the city of Lugo. he told me that the general personal
responsabilidad involved in having and raising a child outweighed economic aspects
·':\firs que el dinero (More than money)"". Another male university informant in his early
20s told me that one had to be ··maduro (mature)"' and had to have ··tas ideas clara (the
right frame of mind)'" or the proper ··mentalidad (mentality}' before starting a family.
Indeed, many young female and male university students w·hom [talked with emphasized
the responsibility involved in raising a child. As with the parents that I intervie\ved. many
university students employed similar verbs to describe child-rearing practices. Many students. such as Manolo. also said that "Not only are parents responsible for raising their children ·properly'. they are also responsible for reevaluating and changing their priorities·· which include making sacrifices for one's children.
Along with notions of responsabilidad, unmarried men also had concrete conceptions of what libertad meant. For example. a 32 year old veterinarian whom [ interviewed told me that his reasons for not wanting to start a family centered on his
\Vanting to maintain his libertad (liberty) which he interpreted as being in jeopardy should he marry and should his partner and himself decide to have children. Similarly. \vhile out one night with some students of Generation '75. I asked some of my male companions w·hether they would marry once they obtained fu ll-time employment. One young man responded that he was going to put off marriage as long as he could because he wanted to
110 maintain his freedom "·Quiero mantener mi lihertad (I want to maintain my freedom) ... I then asked whether they would bring future girlfriends out (they \vere currently single)
\Vith them \vhen they go out \Vith their pandilla (group of friends) to which they answered affirmatively. Confused about why this man talked about losing his lihertad when one·s girlfriend could go out with the pandilla. I continued to probe and asked if they stopped going out with friends once they '.Vere married. The conversation subsequently turned to their adventures with \vomen that had occurred the previous week-end during a festival.
11 With this. I understood these young men· s sense of libertad to mean sexual freedom •
Alberdi also notes this male tendency to equate Iibert ad vvith sex: howe\·er. in broadening the notion of lihertad to include female perspectives. she adds: .. In addition to the economic expense of children. they [children] also greatly limit one·s liberties and one·s possibilities of movement. which. from the perspective of a couple. are [criteria] identitied with the good life"' (Alberdi I 999: !54. translation my ovm. emphasis in
12 original) • Below I examine this tension through a discussion of one criteria of femininity: motherhood.
11 During my participant-observation, young women and men only talked about heterosexuality.
12 I explore the theme of lihertad as it relates to notions of gender difference in Chapters Fi ve and Seven.
I I I On Young: Women·s Interpretations of Motherhood
July 1. 1999
[At the kitchen table at the first apartment sipping on cc{/e] When I \vas relating to Lucinda and Carmen a question that Alba had asked me during my interview with her. '·Why have kids? ((for que lener hijos?f', she had asked, Lucinda looked at me in a confused manner. her brows coming together. She tells me that it is natural to want kids. ·'(,Es natural. no? (It is natural. no?)'· ..... Feelings ofmatemitv are natural". Also. in ~ . the context of us complaining that our mothers fret over us too much, Lucinda had only just arrived from the one year memorial of her boyfriend's death and her mother was worried about her condition. Carmen says, I kno\v that I will be just like my mother. .. [laughing] Lucinda agrees that she too \viii worry over her children as does her mother. They both agree that the decision to become a mother is a big one. Carmen notes that one is a mother for life.
This conversation between Carmen. Lucinda and myself poits to their viev.· of motherhood as being natural. It also suggests that they identifY with their mothers who are anzas de casa (housewives or stay-at-home-mothers). Yet Lucinda and Carmen are
13 also being socialized to compete in the market economy . For example. Carmen ·s mother. \Vho is divorced. further reinforces to both of her daughters the importance of remaining economically independent from their future spouses 1 ~. As Collier raises in her
1997 book. and as I asked myself during fieldwork. how can and how do women sustain
13 Individuals· interpretations of the impact of the widespread formal education in Lugo. as it relates to the birth rate. is explored in Chapter Six.
1 ~ An increase in the divorce rate in Spain is reflected in people's emphasis on women needing to remain economically independent from husbands. The increased divorce rate links to local views of inestabilidad (instability).
l 12 their economic independence from their husbands if they decide to stay at home to raise
children? As Collier \\ITites: "If she stayed home v. .: ith her children. she gave up her
opportunity to become a self-supporting adult. But if she kept her job. she could not
provide her children \vith the motherly care that children ·needed· to realize their
potential" (Collier 1997: 169). Is it egoista. for example. if a woman decides to gain
economic freedom and pursue a career given that young women's mothers reinforce the
importance of doing this? How. tor example. do young women meet both outside
pressures of the market economy and the cultural theme of the importance of raising a
child?15 How will Carmen satisfy her dreams of having a stable job and children o f her
own when she expresses feelings. as do most of my younger female informants. of being
caught between two poles? Why do many young university women express a fear of
being egoista should they not meet the seemingly conflicting social expectations of being
stay-at-home mothers and independent \Vage earners? 16
There is a simultaneous identification by young women in Lugo with their --self-
sacrificing"' mothers and with gaining the competitive skill s (one aspect is being egoista) de\·eJoped through their socialization in the education system. For example. \Vhen I asked
15 Collier also asks ··why fathers did not feel a similar need to personally provide the daily. individualized care they thought young children required"' (Collier 1997: 242). None of the people \Vhom she met and whom I met in Lugo asked this question and in fact some informants suggested that women needed to spend more time at home raising their children because young people are increasingly becoming more mcueria/ista (materialistic) as an outcome of the influence ofthe mass media.
16 I pursue these questions in more detail in Chapter Five.
113 Carmen why she thought the fertility rate is low. she offered three suggestions:
I) .. La educacion de los hijos (changes in the formal education system).. which she
argued no longer helps instill responsibility in young people.
2) .. La madre trabaja (mothers work outside ofthe home)'" although when [asked her
what impact this had she answered \vith a ··Nose (I don·t know)..
3) "Las niiias buscan los chicos mu_v remprano (girls are looking for boys [boyfriends] at
an earlier age)" than her 0\\'11 generation. Carmen argued that these younger women are
more interested in sex than in school and are becoming more aggressive. more like men.
17 more machista •
Carmen·s mentioning of the role played by mothers working omside of the home
points to what I have been highlighting about the importance that people place on the
time spent 1.vith children. It also corresponds with other examples throughout this chapter
about women needing to spend more time \Vith their children. highlighting notions of the
mother-child bonding process. The last point that Carmen raised is an important one. one
which extends to notions of gender difference which I explore in the subsequent chapter.
Now. however. I tum to Herzfeld ( 1997) and the connection betvveen institutional and
local interpretations of the importance of children. an example of his notion of ··cultural
Intimacy··.
17 I explore people·s criticism of young female behaviours and practices in the subsequent chapters.
114 The Interplav between the State and the People
As Collier ( 1997) and Alberdi ( 1999) argue throughout their books. there is an interplay between family relationships. child-rearing practices and socioeconomic contexts. Preparing children for the market economy is reflected in child-rearing practices and child-rearing discourses. People"s conceptions ofparenting and of children are. however. not unique to the Galician context. Similarly. for example. I could compare this situation to my experiences in Canada where people also frequently use essentialising language in their descriptions of child-rearing practices and children·s abilities. I have often talked with proud parents or grand-parents who boast about their child's or grand- child's intelligence18? Pulling a photo of their child or grand-child out of their wallet or purse. the conversation quickly turns to the child"s ·unique· ability to remember people and e\·ents: ··My little grand-child is so smart. He has an incredible memory. He remembers so much and he"s only two and a half! ... Indeed, in a recent article published in Todav·s Parent. a Canadian parenting magazine. on ··Babies. Brains. and Backlash··. the author explores the in\·olvement of science. media and lobby groups in child care and their emphasis on ··the new brain research .. (Hoffman. May 2000: 94). ··One television
18 Herzfeld \vrites that language-derived models examine ··the uses of language and of other semiotic systems in terms of possible commonalities of ideological context and practical action" (Herzfeld 1997: 145). In relation to his social poetics. a focus on language also contextualizes the '·ordinary and the set-apart [which] are features of a continuum. and ... they are what they are in large measure because they focus attention on their being \vhat they are-in other words. because a social actor so engineered their ·set toward the message···cHerzfeld 1997: 147).
115 commercial features a child dressed as an eggplam··. \Hites Hoffman. .. and another as a flower. ·Will a child lie and vegetate·. it asks. ·or blossom intellectually··? No pressure or anything... he adds. It would be interesting to explore the interconnection bet\veen the broader political and socioeconomic shifts to information technology. specialised \vage employment and the use of strategic essentialism in describing a child"s ·Lmique· abilities
19 such as his or her intelligence . For now, howe\·er. I return to the Galician context.
The interconnection between spending enough time with one's child in order to
·properly' prepare him or her and thus remaking children according to the skills and abilities needed in order to compete for wage employment in Spain is interrelated with the Galician gqvemmenfs concern with repopulating Galicia (explored in Chapter
Three). Not only do more children need to be reproduced. but people focus on the need for children to be produced and formed Uormar) along certain criteria. That is. infonnants talked about ways in which they could produce the best offspring while gO\·ernment officials talked about reproducing the Galician population which was often part of a larger nationalist agenda in order to compete with other nations politically and economically.
My data confirm what Nash ( 1991) argued with regards to an earlier period when people were less concerned about Spain·s fertility rates and \Vere more concerned with trying to get through day-to-day living. However. people in the city of Lugo talked about
19 Also see Emily Martin (1997) on flexible accumulation and the post-Fordist era which reflect our understanding of the ·body·'.
116 Galicia·s "social crisis··. thus incorporating it into their daily living practices. Yet. it is
also tnte that in my conversations with informants. they used language \Vhich would
suggest that the .. social crisis·· was indeed the government"s problem and not their own.
The President of the Galician Ministry of the Family and Promotion of Employment.
Women and Youth. Lopez Besteiro·s comment in \vhich she stated that people need to
start to see children as investments (see previous chapter) encapsulates the shift from children being viewed as investments to being view·ed as commodities: a shift tied up in the wider market economy as outlined in Collier ( 1997) and Alberdi ( 1999). At the same time. the ·bettering· of a child and the ·bettering· of the nation have many similarities and interplay with one another. Both are caught up in the overall capitalist economy in which competition is fierce and in \Vhich jobs are increasingly specialized. One can see then. that there is also an interdependence of the modernist project of nationalism and the strength in numbers. and a post modernist project which emphasises the aesthetic of experiences and the bettering ofthe self. That is. the ·bettering· of the nation through an increase in population numbers. and the ·bettering· of children through attentive and child-centered raising practices can be interpreted as means through which the nation and likewise. children. are better prepared to compete in the wider global economy.
Repopulating the nation and a focus on the remaking of children is therefore an example of Herzfeld"s cultural intimacy.
117 Cone! usions
Governments strengthen the loyalty of citizens through their use of familiar language such as "motherland" or "fatherland" (Herzfeld 1997). Representatives ofthe government occupy a parental role while citizens occupy a childlike role. Galician officials' discourses (see previous chapter), and the practice of scolding citizens for not doing their reproductive "chores", can be compared to parents disciplining their children.
People' s acts of blaming the government for its role in not alleviating the high unemployment rate can be compared to people blaming parents for their role in their children's negative outcome. This interplay between governmental and local discourses on accountability for the low fertility rate, is therefore similar to parent-child relationships
20 which Collier (1997) and Alberdi (1999) both outline in their books .
In the next chapter, I further explore how young women experience the tension between sacrificio and egoismo within the context of their emerging gender identities.
20 See Anagnost (1995) for a similar discussion on the links between the Post-Mao Chinese government and local interpretations of the importance of population.
118 Part II: The Interplay between Inestabilidad and Estabilidad
119 Chapter Five: El Egoismo and Meeting: Social Obli1:mtions
As my nevv female friend was once again going through my photo album in the
university residence in Lugo. she commented to me that ·'You·re selfish. Don't you
kno\v? Leaving your boyfriend alone in Canada (Eres egoista. No sabes? Dejar tu norio
solo en Canadar·. she said looking squarely into my eyes vvhile shaking her head. I was
initially shocked and hurt b:y my friend's directness and asked myself how I was e\·er
going to gain the trust of informants in Lugo if I was at times perceived as being egoisra
for pursuing this research on Spain·s fertility rate which had required me to leave family
and friends in Canada. [asked myself this question again as time went on and other
women also noted that I was selfish.
My concern about this characterisation of my "selfishness'· became linked to my
later internalisation of other negative evaluations of me. such as those dealing with my body image. Re\·isiting my fieldnotes and my personal journal. I now wonder how I let others have such an overwhelming influence over how I saw myself. While I had initially internalised people's criticism of my behaviour and body image. the pervasiveness with
\\·hich people in Lugo evaluated women· s practices, behaviours and life choices suggests that these criticisms were less about individuals and more about interpretations of what it means to be good at being a .. good woman'· (and a .. good man") in contemporary urban
Galicia (after Herzfeld 1985). In other words. I now understand people ·s criticisms of
\VOmen as being largely about their interpretations of female social identity.
120 [n this chapter. £ focus on informants· use of strategic essentialism to reinforce
notions of gender difference and their relation to the fertility decline. specifically
informants· identification of women as being responsible for the ··social crisis··. !twas all
too common to hear such things as: v1:omen are behaving more like men by displaying
characteristics such as egoismo (seltishness), being dura (hard). or machista. being cold
and calculating. or thinking with their heads as opposed to their hearts. These
essentialistic portrayals of young \Vomen are part of informants· notions about gender
difference. But where do these notions of gender come from and how might [ interpret
informants· essentialism about gender difference?
Informants· invoking of all-encompassing categories in order to explain \\·hat is
expected of a woman. and what is expected of a man. is reminiscent of the·· honour and
shame'' code of values. Anthropologists and other scholars have referred to this code
when analysing gender difference in Mediterranean societies. [n general. the code linked
female sexuality to procreation and male identity through the protection ofwomen·s chastity. Since this notion was first employed in the 1960s in anthropological \Vork by authors such as Peristiany ( 1965) and Pitt-Rivers ( 1965). considerable debate has been generated. For example. authors such as Abu-Lughod ( 1993; see especially pp. 2 1-23 and
Chapter Five) demonstrate that the honour and shame moral code masks over the everyday acts of displaying and negotiating gender identity. and the experiences of notions of gender difference. while leaving little room for individual agency (see Chapter
121 Two in this thesis for an overview of honour and shame).
The criticisms that I heard in the city ofLugo about young \Vomen·s behaviour.
including my own. varied according to the speaker·s age. gender. and also in terms of the situational context. Therefore. although informants' categorization of what it means to be feminine and of\vhat it means to be masculine may seem to fit in some \vays \Vith the honour and shame moral code. I refrain from employing it as a model to understand notions of gender difference in Lugo. Instead I ask whv there was such a perYasi\·e concern \vith gender difference in 1999 as evidence by the frequent use of essentialistic language when talking about women and men. How. for example, do I interpret young female informants· simultaneous identification \Vith their perceived "self-sacrificing.. mothers and \\·ith the importance of women displaying individual initiative and abilities
(as outlined in Collier 1986 and 1997)--the latter being locally understood as constituting
·qualities· no\v needed in order to compete \Vithin the job market? What role(s) do these seemingly conflicting cultural constructions play in discourses about gender identity in
Lugo? In tum. ho"v do these conflicting constructions affect the shape of relationships between men and \VOmen?
Through the examination of one discourse which informants im·oked as a main reason for the fertility decline, nan1ely that young people, especially young women. are egoista (selfish). I argue that public criticisms point to the possibility that notions of gender difference are in f1ux and unstable (ineswble). Despite the fact that many people
122 talked about the post-Franco period as being --to mejor (the best)"' time period (in comparison to the Franco period). many people ne\'ertheless criticised women·s decision-
making and behaviour based on notions of gender difference prevalent during the
Francoist period. This suggests that there is a complex pattern of change and continuity regarding notions of gender difference. In this chapter. I examine young women·s experiences of the tension bet\veen this pattern of change and continuity as it relates to their notions of gender identities and gender ideologies.
Ef Egoismo
Although most individuals mentioned the government's role in not alleviating the high unemploy·ment rate and the difficulty in obtaining employment as a reason for the low fertility rate. more often. people explained to me that it is low because of the egoismo
(the selfishness) of both parents and of young people (see the previous chapter for
1 parental views on teaching children to be egoista) •
The cultural theme of egoismo. and its conceptual opposites. continually emerged
2 as an explanation for the fertility decline • Although egoismo is not easily translated
1 So pervasive was this idea of egoismo that many informants explained to me that the di\'orce rate is increasing in Spain because ofpeople·s egoismo and their inability to share (curnpartir) with their spouse.
2 For example. Alison MacKinnon (1997) traces the dilemma caused when women are encouraged to choose between wage employment and motherhood for women in Europe and its historical relationship to the practice of blaming \vomen for decreasing birth rates in the late I gth_ I 9th, and early 20th centuries. MacKinnon does make the distinction. however. betw·een one form ofblaming in Britain w·hich focused on women·s role in negatively reshaping the country's birth rate and another pattern in France.
?.., !_.) because its meaning shifts according to the context in \Vhich it is used. it can be translated
into English as meaning selfish. or the displaying of selfishness or self-centeredness.
Being egvista could be translated as being selfish. Generosidad, generosity. or one \Vho
knows how to dar. to give. and compartir. to share are its opposites.
In his ethnography of male identity in a Cretan village of Greece. Herzfeld notes
that ··whereas the cognate English \\·ord ·egoism· suggests a pure focus on the self. the
Greek term can only be understood as a social category.. (Herzfeld 1985: II. emphasis in
original). The practice of invoking the social category is an example of strategic essentialism. That is. Herzfeld argues that Glendiot men display their manhood through performances of the self which include both acceptable forms of eghoismos. which are systematic such as reciprocal animal theft. and unacceptable forms of eghoismos. \Vhich are less admirable (Herzfeld 1997: 50). Following Herzfeld, that both women and men of various ages in Lugo frequently referred to el egofsmo in the context of family planning. suggests to me that this aspect of thinking for oneself. or the displaying of el egoismv is
America. and Australia in \Vhich a Malthusian tradition was inherited whereby blame was placed on the couple (MacKinnon I 997: 23: also see Schneider and Schneider 1996 for an account of Sicily). In her book. MacKinnon gives more attention to the state·s blaming of women and their being told that they should choose between. \Vhat she calls ··Jove and freedom .. (MacKinnon 1997: 3). that is. between marriage and motherhood, and \vage work. Mackinnon writes that in Britain, the Royal Commission's inquiry in 1904 into the reasons for the birthrate decrease placed the responsibility of the decline on the "selfishness of women" (MacKinnon 1997: 23). Also see Laurie Lisle's (1999) personal account on the experiences ofpronatalism in the United States after the Second World War. See Chapter Three in this thesis for an account of pro natal ism during the Franco Regime ( 1939-1975).
124 less of an individual characteristic: rather it constitutes a ''social trait'" (Herzfeld 1985:
26). As my discussion of notions of gender difference belO\v \viii highlight. in Lugo and
other parts of Galicia. el egoismo is understood to be a masculine characteristic whereas women are supposed to sacrifice their O\Vn needs and \Vants for the good of their families
(also see Kelley's 1988 description of gender-specific characteristics in a coastal rural
Yillage in Galicia). Moreover. that inhabitants frequently criticised female behaviour and life choices reflects what Herzfeld suggests when he argues that ""For most Greek villagers. moral evaluations are not assessments of innate character--which they deny being able to read even as they try to do so--but rather of social inclusion"" (Herzfeld
1997: 50). Changing gender practices. however. point to the flexibility of these notions.
Collier ( 1997) questions \vhy her informants in Los Olivos (Andalusia) talked about their sacr~f/cios (sacrifices) for their families in the 1960s \\·hereas in the I 980s they invoked e! egofsmo (selfishness) when explaining why the fertility rate is ·[ow·. therefore implying that people no longer made sacrificios for the family and the nation.
Why has there been a shift in language from sacrijicio to egofsmo. and \vhat does this shift mean? Collier argues that people offered different interpretations of family planning in the 1960s and in the 1980s because of socioeconomic changes in Los Olivos.
Parents· and children's economic interests were the same in the 1960s because most money was invested into the casa \vhich would be inherited by children. In contrast. in the I 980s. more parents invested money towards their children's formal education or
125 training which was not necessarily beneficial for the cas a. As such. people· s criticism of family planning practices in Los Olivos shifted from the 1960s to the 1980s. reflecting the economic shift from land inheritance. which determined one's social position in the
1960s. to formal education or training which prepared children for the market economy in the 1980s. As Collier states. in the 1960s, "both supporters and critics of family planning claimed to be suppressing their personal desires in order to do what was required of them by God's social order'" (Collier 1997: 169). In the 1980s. in contrast. "by invoking notions of parental ·selfishness·. both proponents and critics of birth control implied an inherent conflict between parents and children over scarce family resources" (Collier
1997: 169). Collier's analysis of the shift in discourse is part of her examination of inhabitants· development of ·modem subjectivity' in which villagers stressed the importance of meeting social obligations in the 1960s, w·hile they emphasized the need to think for oneself in the 1980s.
My interpretation of informants· invoking of el egoismo in Lugo stems from
Collier"s analysis of the socioeconomic shifts in Los Olivos which influenced villagers·
\Nays of talking about family planning practices. It is \vi thin the context of socioeconomic changes which loosened the control of parents over their children's prospects of\\·ealth and prestige, that I analyse people's criticisms of young women's perceived egoismo which reflect both widespread notions of gender difference and the tension between meeting social obligations and thinking for oneself.
126 \Vhile in Lugo. I had ample opportunity to observe and participate in the daily interactions bet\veen family members and friends. What initially struck me the most was the emotional closeness displayed bet\veen siblings and the sense of responsibility that members of Generation ·75 displayed for their fami ly and friends. What do inhabitants· strong sense of familial obligation and interpersonal closeness suggest in light of local notions that young people. particularly women, are to blame for the low fertility rate because of their ·selfishness·? How do I interpret negative social evaluations on the part of both men and women of the changing everyday behaviour. and life choices of young women? For example. inhabitants of Lugo often commented to me that younger \vomen were changing for the worse and becoming more like men: materialistic (materialista). seltish (egois[(t}. nwchisra. hard (dura). more superticial and having fewer values (nuis superjlcial y tienen menos mlores). as \Vel! as only being interested in sex. How do men and women differentially experience these negative evaluations?
.. Sov ERoista ..
Pedro. the young veterinarian who has been in a relationship with the same woman for 15 years told me during my interview \.vi th him that he is egoisra. adding that more men are egoisra than are women. He told me that there are economic reasons for the fertility decline. ·· it is low because economically it is pretty complicated to have children". I asked if it is complicated because there is little stable work... Yes ... he said. nand because people are in university longer meaning... he added... that they only tinct
127 work at a later age··. However. he continued.~- in my case, it is because of egofsmo ... He
v-..·ent on to say that he does not \vant children or to marry his partner of 15 years because
of··the responsibility". adding "I don't feel like it, I want to travel. go out \Vith
friends ... ··.
\\/ithout specifically making reference to themselves as Pedro had. many of my young male informants told me that more men are egofsta than are women. When I would ask why they thought that this was the case. some made reference to socialising practices in the home. One man who had an older sister told me that he and his sister vvere raised differently. He explained to me that he did not perform many household chores. implying that he had more freedom than his sister to pursue other activities which vvere of interest to him. However. \Vhen I talked to his mother. she told me that she won·ied more about her son because he was the youngest child and she was some\vhat more strict with him.
She continued to tell me that because her son \vas in university and \VOrked on a pan-time basis. she did not ask him to help out \Vith the household chores. His mother was therefore suggesting that she adapted her parenting strategies according to her children's current responsibilities and age. and less as a function of her children's gender.
Another male infonnant told me that more men are egofsta because women put up with it and therefore men were not encouraged to change. However. he also told me that younger women, more particularly adolescent girls, were increasingly adopting •·male., characteristics which could be observed. he argued. walking downtovm in the pro~im ity
128 of young women pandillas (group o f friends).
On Egoismo and Women
I found that throughout my fieldvvork. many female friends tried their best to
avoid being called egoista. For example. in many of the conversations that I had with
Carmen. she told me that she both desired and feared being egoista. At the same time.
although she had broken up with her boyfriend of seven years because she felt that he was
egoist a and rarely thought of her feelings. she nonetheless contemp!ated becoming more
egoista. For example one night. while describing some of her girlfriends as being egoista.
she began to cry and explain to me that she needed to become more egoisra. because as
she told me, none of her friends had been as hurt as she had been. HO\vever. Carmen also
struggled with the dilemma of not wanting to be egoista. On another occasion. she
expressed her fear of hurting one of her sister· s friends with whom she was developing a
romantic relationship. ··How can I pursue this if I don "t really want a serious relationship
right now? What if I hurt him? Ah. rm so egoist a for even thinking about pursuing this
knowing that I'm not really ready for a relationship"". she cried out. It was only after she
told her sister of her worries that she began to feel good about continuing the relationship.
When I asked Carrnen·s mother. Sofia. whether she thought Carmen should become more
egoista. she replied that she thought Carrnen needed to learn how to say ··no'·. Sofia argued that Carmen needed to learn how to balance bet\veen sacrificing hersel f for fami ly members and friends, and pursuing her own interests.
129 Alba began our interview session by openly laughing about ho\v the fertility rate in Galicia and in Spain are low because ··"ve are selfish .... I don't want a child. [want to remain economically independent"". she said. My conversation with Alba points to her awareness of the tension between wage employment and the standards of raising a child which requires that a mother stay at home for the child"s early years. Alba has resolved the tension by not \vanting children in the future \vhich she interprets as being a seltish decision.
That both women and men of various age cohorts in the city· of Lugo referred to
··ef egoismo·· as one of the main reasons for the fertility decline suggests that the notion of egoismo is unstable: that is. there is a need for its invoking because of its tluidity. As anthropologist Michael Herzfeld remarks on strategic essentialism: ··apparent fixities
[here described in the context of local gender difference] are the products of the \·ery things they deny: action. agem.)·. and use .. (Herzfeld 1997: 165). Therefore. although the practice of invoking ·"el egoismo'· may seem to serve the objective of making the category less malleable. ironically. this act of invoking it and linking it to a ·traditional· male behaviour. yet nO\\ extending it to female beha\'iour. suggests that there is room for manipulation and that notions of gender difference are not as clear-cut as they are sometimes talked about. In contrast. the sacrifices and loyalty that both young women and men in Lugo displayed tovvards their family members and friends were not talked about in the same manner (i.e .. using essentialising language). Nor should the criticisms of young
130 \\·omen ·s behaYiour and that of youth of both genders. be interpreted as being isolated and
3 as solely resulting from cross-generational misunderstandings •
That informants in Lugo negatively critiqued the behaviour of young adults.
specifically of young women·s behaviour and life choices. suggests that there is a longing
for a time which is represented as an ideal time when shifts and confusions about what it
means to be good at being a good woman, for example. \Vere not present. As Herzfeld
( 1997) reminds us, the practice of talking about the past is not new·. even while the
content of conversations bet\veen people are subject to change situationally and over
time. How·ever. ironically ...a rhetoric of change and decay may thus actually be quite static .. (Herzfeld 1997: Ill).
Herzfeld uses the concept of ··structural nostalgia'· to describe ··the means through which people--state officials and miscreants alike--use images of a lost perfection to try to explain away the sorry state of today·s world and especially the necessity of imposing
laws or. .. resisting them·· (Herzfeld 1997: Ill). The t\vo features of this notion are that
·'each youth cohort groans at its parents" evocation of a time \Vhen eve!)thing was better··
(Ibid.): and that whiche\·er \·irtue is perceived as lost. whether ··generosity. [0\·e. respect. or simply transactional honesty. it has lost its pristine perfection and may be in danger of disappearing altogether'· (Ibid.).
Although people invoked ··et egoisma·· as a reason for the low fertility rate and
3 Although this is part of it. see. for example local interpretations of the changing mourning practices outlined in Collier ( 1986) and ( 1997).
131 attributed changing female practices in particular as evidence of their seltishness. strong
kinship and friendship bonds contradict notions of young female selfishness and young
adult selfishness in general.
Turning to the Familv for Estabi/idad
Alberdi writes that the ·'Spanish society has suffered enormous (socioeconomic
and political] transformation in the last three decades and the family is at the centre of all
these changes·· (Alberdi 1999: l 0. translation my own). Indeed. as I discussed in the
previous chapter. with the increasing participation of Spanish youth in universities. the
high unemployment rates. the overall shortage of affordable housing for young adults in
Spain. and children· s prolonged economic dependence on their parents point to an overall change in the pattern of life cycle transitions (see Delgado and Livi-Bacci 1992: and
Cavalli and Galland 1995 for a discussion of youth in general in Western Europe). In the
4 context of economic and romantic instability (ineswhilidad) • where and to whom can young adults turn for guidance and support? In this section of the chapter. [ examine intra-familial relationships and I argue that similarly to relationships among groups of friends in a pandilfa. the family· provides a stable environment which young adults tum to when faced with inesrahilidad. And although the forms of family composition in Spain
5 and in Galicia have changed over time , especially considering the high rates of divorce.
4 I discuss these forms of inestabi/idad in the subsequent chapters.
5 See. for example. Alberdi ( 1999): Buechler ( 1987): Buechler and Buechler ( 1984 ): and Collier ( 1997) for different accounts of changes in family formations and ..,, 1.)_ familial obligations and loyalty haYe remained strong among the people \vhom I knew in
Lugo.
r argue along with Collier ( 1997). that emotional bonds have remained strong in
Spain. Howe\·er. Collier suggests that since the 1980s. ··the general experience of up\\ard
mobility is partly responsible for the strong parent-child bonds ... (Collier 1997: 241 ). She
asks furthermore ··what will happen to parent-child relations ifthe economic situation
deteriorates and most children find themselves condemned to low·ly class position of their
parents""? (Ibid.). Following Stack ( 1974). I interpret these bonds as being a strategy
which help people partially alleviate the pressures of daily living in the context of the
overall unpredictability of socioeconomic conditions.
In anthropologist Carol Stack·s ethnography ( 1974 ). she describes the close
kinship and fictive kinship ties which she interprets to be a system that helps to ensure
economic and social support during times of need for inhabitants of an inner-city African
American neighbourhood in a mid,vestem city in the United States. Although familial
obligations (ob/igaciones) differ in degree in varying contexts (see. for example. Loizos
and Papataxiarchis 1991. Introduction). I interpret social networks in Lugo to have a
similar function. As with the neighbourhood where Stack conducted research. family· and
friendship emotional support displayed among largely middle-class informants in the city of Lugo fosters a stable (eswbifidad) and protective environment for unmarried youth
practices. .., .., 1.).) 6 against outside pressures • In part. it is these experiences within these social networks and
informants· sense of ob/igacion and loyalty for one another that prepares them and
sensitises them to the idea of parenthood.
My approach to understanding family relationships reflects Bourdieu·s ( 1977) in
which he argues that these .. are the product of strategies (conscious or unconscious)
oriented towards the satisfaction of material and svmbolic interests and or2:anized bv - ~ "' reference to a determinate set of economic and social conditions·' (Bourdieu 1977: 36 ).
Or as Medick and Sabean \\Tile of Bourdieu·s approach: ··Bourdieu argues against
vie"ving family and kinship relations as objects, but rather as practices which embody
strategies. Concrete interests of individuals are not reducible to material interests. but
neither are thev reducible to emotional satisfactions.. (Medick and Sabean 1984: 24). In
relation to Collier·s question then. I focus predominantly on the displaying of emotional
closeness between family members and friends \vhile [approach kinship and friendship
bonds bv examining: their role in the creation and maintenance of balance (estabilidad) - ~ and support during periods of economic insecurity and stress (inestabilidad) (e.g. Stack
I) I am not arguing the ·home as ha\·en · model which. since the 1960s and 1970s has receive much criticism considering the violence which occurs in households (see Lamela Viera 1998: Chapter Eight for a discussion of Lugo. Ho\vever, through participant-observation and through conversations \Vith informants, it seems to me that for many people whom [knew in Lugo. friendships and family were interpreted as being stable relationships and protective environments.
134 7 1974) . I describe the emotional bonds and loyalty which family members displayed to
one another during my period of three months of fieldwork. I look especially at the close
relationships
bet\veen siblings.
Previous anthropological work in Galicia reflects a similar approach to Bourdieu · s
in which a synthesis bet\veen emotional needs and material interests is made in order to
better understand the inter-personal dynamics in family relationships and inter-household
relationships. Until the 1990s, much anthropological research on rural Galicia mainly centered on labour migration. unequal inheritance and stem-family households (see. for example. Bauer 1987; Buechler 1987: Buechler and Buechler 1984: Kelley 1988 and
1991: Lis6n Tolosana 1976: and Roseman 1993 and 1999). As social anthropologist
Carmelo Lis6n Tolosana ( 1976) describes. Galician inheritance practices have differed according to regions. For example. in the interior of the province of Lugo. the eldest males were usually chosen as the main heirs in contrast to coastal fishing communities in the province of A Corufia \\·here females have been the preferred main heirs. There are. of course. also complex socialisation processes invol\·ed in the choice of the children who
7 On the strengthening of these relationships through the exchange of material goods and services. see. for example. Spanish anthropologist Maria del Carmen Lamela Viera ·s ( 1998) account of its occurrences in the city of Lugo. Also see Gulevich ( 1995 ): Kelley ( 1988): and Roseman ( 1993) on the exchange of food items between relatives in rural and urban Galicia. For a theoretical orientation see, for example. Pierre Bourdieu's ( 1977) discussion of symbolic capital.
135 8 inherit land holdings (Bauer 1987: Douglass 1971: and Roseman 1999) • For example. anthropologist Rainer Bauer ( 1987) explains that. in the nineteenth century. the formation of stem-family households in the agropastoral district of Sierra de Caurel (Lugo) included the practice of patrilocal post-marriage residence. He further outlines a tradition of female out-migration. particularly to urban areas during this time period and subsequent years.
He argues that both strategies influenced cultural norms about gender and parenting roles.
Although. for instance. women \vorked en casa (at home). those who emigrated during their youth returned being ··more w·orldly'. (Bauer 1987: 186) and this carried over into household relations where they shared pow·er with male household heads (Ibid.).
Although Bauer highlights the pO\ver that parents had over potential main heirs during the nineteenth century when land holdings established one·s socioeconomic position. more recently Roseman and Kelley ( 1999). among others. explore the shifts in parent-child relations that result from the increased importance of v.. · age work and education and diminished viability or agricultural land holdings.
Primarily due to out-migration to Latin America. a high percentage of unmarried mothers was characteristic of nineteenth century Galicia. particularly in the pro\·ince of A
8 Roseman and Kelley have defined the Galician stem-family household system as one which ··involves a prefe rence for unequal and usually post-mortem inheritance whereby one sibling in a family is granted the majority of parent's property after their deaths: in return for this future material legacy. after marriage. that sibling continues to reside in and/or formally pertain to her/his natal household .. (Roseman and Kelley I 999: 9).
136 9 Coruna (Kelley 1991 ) • Acceptance of single mothers and the \Vives of absent men as household heads and main heirs contributed to the notion of rural Galician \vomen as
10 being powerful (Kelley 1991 and 1994) • [t also created situations in which children were raised mainly by their mothers and other relatives. When it became common for both parents to emigrate temporally in the 1970s-80s. grandparents assisted in caring for children remaining in Galicia. thus reinforcing the stem-family household system
(Roseman 1993. 1999: for descriptions of family households in Portugal. also see. for example. Brenell 1986. 1988 and 1991: and Cole 1991 ). This long tradition of stem- family households in Galicia led me to ask whether it had any impact on the everyday life of families living in the city of Lugo.
Bevond Essentialism about the Urban Familv
Urban areas are often depicted by Spanish informants and by scholars as highly impersonal and individualistic. Cities in Galicia are described as being the locations where few people knovv· their neighbours. and in \Vhich the nuclear t:1mily takes precedence over the extended family (see, for example. Gulevich 1995 and Kelley 1988).
9 [n-migration and out-migration practices are also specific to geographic zones and historical time periods ... [n the 1940s. the tide of Galician emigration began to tum away from Latin America and toward northern Europe and North America... usually permanent transatlantic movement [shifted] to a temporary movement of both men and w·omen"' (Kelley 1991: 567).
10 This situation of \Vomen raising children also helped establish notions of parenting responsibilities. In the event \vhere both parents emigrated. grandparents assisted in caring for children remaining in Galicia (see, for example. Roseman 1999).
137 In contrast. my experiences in the city of Lugo pointed to a different situation. that is.
extended family members and neighbours regularly interacted with one another. And
while in my conversations \Vith inhabitants of the city in \Vhich we talked about how the
nuclear family has become the main family form. I also observed and heard the contrary.
For example. one Catholic priest whom I interviewed had argued that the "'family.. as an
institution \Vas increasingly becoming less important in the lives of urban dwellers. He
added that in the premarital courses that he taught. couples were informed of the
importance of their union. The priest also suggested to them how they might raise a child
in the city where. he argued. it was more difficult than in the campo (country) because of
the lack of extended family support. Yet Maria, introduced in previous chapters, \vho
lived in the city all of her life. resided w·ith her mother. Maria told me that her mother
helped with the raising of her son while Maria and her husband \Vorked outside of the
home. Furthern10re, although many people did not necessarily live in an extended family
household. emotional ties remained strong (also see Fernandez and Fernandez 1988 for their description of residential arrangements \Vhich reflect the importance of continuing family ties in urban Asturias)". For example, Antonia, a graduate university student regularly saw and went out with her male cousins who lived in the city of A Conuia. Both
11 In Lamela Viera's ethnography of the city of Lugo (1998), she also notes the importance of familial relationships and the moral obligation which can be displayed through relatives using the practice of enchzife to help each other. Enchuje, having an "'in". is sometimes described as corruption but is a common way of obtaining employment and other benefits (Lamela Viera 1998: 163-167).
138 her paternal and maternal grand-mothers, she told me. went over to her parent"s casa in
Lugo ever;.· Sunday for supper. In addition. many informants shared summer homes with
relatives which were located mainly outside of the city. Antonia explained to me that
when she \vas growing up. her family and her uncle's family al\vays \Vent away together
tor summer vacation. Indeed. the relationship benveen her cousins and herself and her
brother remain strong through their frequent visits made to one another.
Grown Children·s Relationship with their Parents
Collier ( 1997) and Alberdi ( 1999) both argue that there has been a shift in Spanish society from viewing children as heirs to parental projects ( 1997) or in Alberdi"s words.
··from an investment to a commodity"' ( 1999) \Vhich I explored in Chapter Four. Here. however. I examine parent-child relations once the child has become older. That is. as is the case elsewhere in the world. once children are older. often the economic and emotional interests begin to balance out and transform into a give-and-take relationship between parents and their grown children. In addition, although mothers may be especially responsible for the well-being of their children when they are still quite young. fathers· participation increases \Vith the ageing of the child. For example. when [first began field\vork, Galicia·s regional basketball competition was taking place. [went to vie\v a fev.: of the games in Lugo with Antonia. her friends. and her t:1ther. Antonia and her father usually picked me up at the residence and once we arrived at the stadium where the basketball games took place. her father would sit in a separate section from where
139 Antonia and her friends sat. although he was usually in close proximity. However. at the
end of the game. Antonia' s father would once again join us and subsequently drive me to
the residence and then drive Antonia to their home. Furthermore . .Antonia·s father
participated in her academic endeavours. For example. Antonia·s father attended a
ceremony. which commemorated the work of academic articles w·hich had been published
in a new edition of a Galician journal. because Antonia had co-written an article. Antonia
also told me that her father and her mother frequently made day· trips from Lugo to A
Corufia with her and her younger brother to do some shopping.
Beyond paternal interest in a child"s endeavours. hO\vever. parents also regularly
gave food items to their children \Vhen they were living away from home to pursue formal
schooling: this behaviour also helped to strengthen emotional bonds and loyalty (see. for
example. Kelley 1988 and Roseman 1993 for descriptions of the importance of food in
rural Galicia).
Carmen and Fatima. although living in an apartment. went home almost every
week-end to visit with their mother. Carmen and Fatima·s mother gave her daughters
both cooked food. which she froze in containers. and fresh fruit. Many students in
residence also went home every week-end to help with household chores and to visit \vith
their fan1ilies. When these students in residence returned on Sunday evenings. they often
brought with them food items from their casas. The understanding of family obligations are experienced in various degrees by members of Generation · 75. Below. r include some
140 vignettes which describe indi\·idual experiences with meeting family obligations.
Experiences of Familv Obligations and Displavs of Lovaltv
At 26 years of age. Alba. for example. is the oldest of three other siblings in her
family. Her mother is a house\vife. and her father has been a civil servant most of his
adult life. Alba· s siblings are in their late teens and the second oldest has just celebrated
her 20th birthday. Because her father is a civil servant. Alba \vas not given a grant from
the regional government to help finance her schooling. [nstead. her family was paying for
her education. Because her siblings vvere entering an age \Vhen they \\.:ould soon be
starting university, Alba felt a responsibility to help \Vith the financing of their schooling.
This responsibility that she felt for her siblings was a source of great stress for her and
during our com·ersations late at night. \Ve often talked about her sense of obligation for
her family.
Carmen called her mother. Sofia. who lived in a nearby industrial tO\Vl1. on a daily
basis. telling her of her sister" sand her own daily activities. thus ensuring her mother that
both she and her sister were fine. Both her sister. Fatima. and she also \vent home every
weekend to visit with their mother. The sense of emotional obligation that Carmen felt for
both her younger sibling and her mother oftentimes had required her to lie to her mother about her younger sibling·s activities. Carmen·s act of protecting Fatima·s privacy was a source of tension for her.
Antonia. for example. was criticised by her male friends for having gone home
141 early from the bar one night. ··She always thinks about what her parents \vant her to do or what her parents might think. She does not think for herself'. a male friend ofAntonia"s noted. But Antonia· s actions \Vere not ali that unique although they were probably specific to her relationship with her parents. Indeed. many informants· in Generation ·75 demonstrated consideration for their parents. For example. three sisters who are members of Antonia's pandi/la (group of friends) decided to have a picnic one afternoon in a park located just outside of the city··s perimeter. They had invited their close female friends. their younger brother. and two of their father's co-worker's young children to the picnic.
Because the sisters shared a vehicle. they had to make several trips in order that everyone get to the picnic area. We all sat around a picnic table. ate the Spanish tortillas
(omelettes) which they had prepared earlier in the day along \Vith other food items. and then the younger children (between the ages of seven and ten) played while we talked about books, movies. the television shO\·\· of Friends and relationships with men. all the while keeping watch over the younger children. Why. [asked myself. had the sisters and their friends decided to invite their father"s co-\vorker"s young children to a picnic? Did it benefit their father somehow?
Two of Antonia·s male cousins. who livc:d in the city of A Coruii.a went home. to the city of Lugo. every \veek-end ,,·here they· each held part-time jobs at local bars. They had a younger brother who was also attending university \Vith them in the city of A
Coruiia where all three of them shared an apartment which was paid for by their parents.
142 Although. their parents \Vere paying for the apartment. I questioned whether the two older
brothers· income supplemented their own material interests. or \vent to\vards helping their
family 1 ~ .
Although informants did not talk about their obligations to their families on a
daily basis. most made reference to these when I would specifically ask about their
relationship with their family. In particular. they talked about their relationships with their
siblings.
SiblinQ. Relationships
I first took note of the closeness displayed bet,veen siblings during the beginning
of fieldwork. In one of the first email letters that I \HOte to my thesis supervisor. I noted
that ·The siblings are close. Saturday night Carmen also brings her younger sister out
with us. Is this a pattern? That is. are siblings close here? Or maybe this is only the norm among the girls 13 that I have met?"" (May 24, 1999). Throughout the summer. however. it
became apparent to me that many siblings were emotionally close to one another.
Antonia for example. was protective of her younger brother. During our \·isit to A
Coruna for the San Juan festival tdiscussed in the introductory chapter). Antonia· s
1 ~ Cam1en. for example. worked part-time and the wages which she earned went to\vards her O\vn expenses in Lugo. Her sister. on the other hand. did not have a job and relied on her mother for financial assistance.
13 As in Spain, where young women are commonly referred to as ·'chicas (girls)"·. in Newfoundland and in popular Maritime English, young women are oftentimes called ··girls··. despite the recognition in central Canada and in parts of the United States of its sexist connotation.
143 younger brother was also WTiting the university entrance exams (discussed in the
following chapter). And although members of Antonia·s pandilla and [ left after the
festivaL Antonia remained at her cousins· apartment with her younger brother in order to
support him as he \\Tote the exams. On the night of San Juan. Antonia \Vaited anxiously
for her younger brother's return to their cousins· apartment after his first day of exams.
\Vhen Antonia heard his Yo ice through the intercom system located at the entrance of the
apartment building, she rushed to the door to let him in and asked him hov.- he thought he
had done on his exams. Her younger brother told her that he thought that he had done
fairly \Veil at \vhich she responded with an immediate hug and pulled him into the kitchen
where the rest of the pandi/la sat in order to inform them of the good news.
Carmen also felt a responsibility for her younger sibling. In our search for an apartment. Carmen was responsible for making the appointments with prospecti\·e
landlords and landladies. Carmen organized the financial bills. Carmen often told Fatima that she should have a meal cooked when she came home from her job at the academy and suggested \vhat her younger sister should make. Carmen would often remind Fatima
to lock the apartment door behind her when she left. Carmen allocated cleaning duties to
Fatima and myself w·hich \Ve each had to perform. or, othef\vise be regularly reminded of our cleaning responsibilities. In general. Carmen played a mother-like role in her relationship \Vith her younger sister and concerned herself a great deal over Fatima· swell being. However. Fatima also took great interest in her older sister's happiness and \vould
144 often remind Carmen to have fun (dh,ji·utar) and not to \vorry so much over her financial situation. Since Carmen's break-up with her boyfriend. she had relied more on Fatima's emotional support which led to their socializing \Vith the same group of friends. When they· went out together. each watched over the other and when one was not having fun. they would usually decide to go home together.
l'v1oreover. Lamela Viera (1998: especially Chapter Four) notes the commonality of siblings owning businesses together. Carlos. for example. together with his older brother. O\vned the popular restaurant w·hich university students frequented. Carlos told me that he and his brother had taken over their father"s long-tem1 restaurant business
\\·hich was located in the city centre but which they had shut dovvn in order to open the restaurant in the university area. Their father could often be found at the new restaurant. sitting in a booth. overlooking the day's activities. Carlos frequently worked behind the bar counter while his older brother waited on tables.
Towards an Understandimz of People"s Criticism of Young People's Behaviours
Hmv do I begin to tease out an understanding of people's criticism of young people· s behaviours. particularly young \vomen · s. in the context of their meeting social obligations? And what role does the social criticism of changing female practices suggest? To begin with. young men talked about being selfish in a matter-of-fact \vay.
\vhile young \vomen expressed experiences of a tension between self-sacritlcing for others and thinking of themselves or displaying selfishness. This suggests that. in some
145 ways people have clear boundaries and definitions ofw·hat it means to be a female and a
male. It is ·normal· for example. for a man to be selfish \vhereas it is ·normal· for a
woman to nurture and self-sacrifice for others. In addition, young urban women must
present an ·idealized" body image by displaying a ·good· sense of fashion style and b:-·
maintaining healthy looking physical bodies in order to avoid negative social evaluations
14 of their femininitv • However. the educated voung women \vhom I interviewed \Vho are - . ~ - members of Generation ·75 are experiencing a conflict in terms ofv,·hat it means to be a
woman. \Vhile they are being socialized in households by mothers \vho were raised
during the pronatalist regime of Francisco Franco ( 1939-1975). they are also being
socialized in the post-Franco period in \vhich competitive skills and abilities are being
developed. through formal education. in order to prepare them for professional jobs.
However. one of the ·nonnative' femininity criteria is to become a mother. As Carmen told me ··rt is natural to w·ant to be a mother"'(see Chapter Four). Yet as some female university students who participated in my research also noted, there are contradictions betw·een work and family. Mothers, for example, are supposed to sacrifice themselves for the well-being of their children but also be professionally ambitious and successful. This suggests that although female lives have changed. an older set of criteria for appropriate femininity have been maintained along with a ne\v set of criteria. As the tension bet\veen sacr~ficio and e/ egoismo highlights. current gender ideologies are in transition and have
1 ~ I explore this in Chapter Seven.
I46 not necessarily shifted.
In contrast to people's discussions about what was involved in having children.
the sacrifices and loyalty that inhabitants of the city of Lugo displayed for family
members and friends were not talked about using essentialising language. Instead. family
members and friends in Lugo city displayed their closeness on a daily basis and the taken-
for-granted or ·commonsense· nature of these relationships contributed to their
pervasiveness.
Alba for example. remarks that:
My family loves me a lot. my parents. siblings. my cousins. The family is very important Amanda. very important. I mean to say that [with stress] mv famil v is important to me. that doesn · t mean that I want to have (I iterally make) my ovvn family. it"s a bit of a contradiction. isn't it? But ifs very complicated to have a child ... It is a sacrifice. parents sacrifice for their children. they don't live their own lives. Without a child, you can live your own life. It is a form of selfishness. do you understand?. she asked.
My intervievv with Alba and others makes me question if it is possible whether. in
places like Lugo. the idea of having a child has become. an idea \vhich has more in
common with the currently fluid nature of local notions of gender difference than with the
taken-for-granted. 'natural' loyalty and dedication to each other that family members and
friends describe in conversations and also regularly display through their behaviour.
Conclusions
Considering people's practices of meeting social obligations coupled with their
147 notions of child rearing (see previous chapter). or.e is left to \Vonder \vhether or not it is these notions and these relationships with family members and friends w·hich prepare young people for parenthood. That is. it seems to me that the young people whom I kne\v had clear ideas as to what having a child would mean because they were already. in part. playing out features of parenthood through their existing relationships. In general. people described a student's life as being ·'to mejor (the best)" time in one·s life because of the
15 fewer amount of responsibilities \Vhich \Vere associated with adulthood • How·ever. as I described in the second half of this chapter. young people were not only responsible for themseh·es: they \Vere also responsible for their family members and friends which they demonstrated on a daily basis through their acts of meeting obligations and by looking out for one another. And although people talked about both parental and youth selfishness as being a main reason for the ·IO\\.· fertility rate. close bonds between family members and friends countered their interpretations.
Since Alba and other young informants frequently displayed closeness with their family members. and given that many young university students went home on \veek-ends during the school year. \\·hat were the conditions under \vhich university students lived while in Lugo? I pursue this question in the following chapter through a description of everyday living during the examination period in the summer of 1999.
15 I explore this in the subsequent chapter.
148 Chapter Six: Generation ·75 Experiences of Economic Inestabilidad
With the tape record occupying the centre ofthe kitchen table. Julio focused on his cigarette pack and pulled out another one. not looking up from his lighter. Fatima \Vas watching him closely and took the coffee spoon out of his glass. inserted it into the sugar cup and in turn. placed the spoon in her glass. swishing it around in her own coffee. I put down my pen and paper and asked ifthey \vould prefer it if I shut off the tape recorder.
.. Go on. Amanda! That is not necessary. Look. what do you \Vant to know? (iQue m .
Amanda! Noes necesario. A{ira. ~Que quieres saber?)'", Fatima asked. I was not used to their nervousness and wondered if it w·ould not have been better to have simply talked with them in the living room in front of the television. as we normally did after our 2 p.m. meal. watching day time soap operas and the international music station \vhich we watched \Vith amusement given that none of us was able to understand German. Fatima.
Carmen's younger sister. had however insisted that I conduct an organised interview '\vith her and her boyfriend. Julio. as I had previously done several times \Vith Sotla. Carmen and Fatima's mother.
A few more minutes passed and with them, Julio seemed to loosen up and both he and Fatima began to talk freely and openly about the ir interpretations of the fertility rate and of their relationship with one another. Indeed, when I asked for further clarification
149 about what the terms ··enro!larse'" and '·calenterlo"' mean', Julio took my pen and paper and drew a picture of a heterosexual couple holding hands and kissing below a suspended heart at \Vhich we laughed wholeheartedly.
In the context of their interpretations of the situation for young. unmarried women who have a child. Fatima and Julio commented that it is '·[a situation] which is very difficult (es una pwada. a/go muy diflci[) ... ·'Unless'·, they continued ··the woman had financial help from her tamily and help with raising the child. Otherwise. it vvould simply be impossible. You can ·t go to school. work. and raise a child. If s one or the other··.
Fatima and Julio explained that the ideal life cycle transitions from being a student. to having a stable job, to getting marriage. and ultimately to starting a family only happens in the movies. Because of the current uncertainty about the possibility of securing stable employment. one has to remain flexible with one· s goals. they concluded.
This chapter is about how my informants in Generation ·75 are experiencing their current life cycle stage. I focus on their practices and use of particular strategies in the broader context of economic instability (inestabilidad). As university students. they are occupied with studying for exams. striving to perform vvell on these. and faced with the approaching dilemma of finding stable employment. I specifically examine what I perceive as adaptive strategies which young university students in Generation ·75 use to negotiate the economic ines!abilidad. Indeed. in talking with informants of this cohort. frequent
1 As I explore in the following chapter. both these terms are used frequently \vhich refer to the act of becoming sexually involved with someone.
150 reference was made to life' s unpredictability. Young people in Lugo, as with people in other parts of Galicia (Lamela Viera 1998: Lis6n-Tolosana 1973: Roseman forthcomingb). refer to the concept of ...werle (luck) .. and to their feelings of uncertainty about what the future will bring. expressed by such sayings as .. :Vunca se sabe lo que ocurria mai?ana
(Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring)'·.
Although informants of all ages argued that the life of a student is the best .. es lo mejor.. time in one·s life. the students whom I knew experienced periods of intense stress
(estres) and pressure (presion) during the competitive examinations for university entrance. for university end of the year courses, and for public service employment. From early June of 1999 until July of 1999. these three different kinds of exams took place across Galicia. Regional nev;spapers reported on these exams and I outline them belo\v. In addition to the importance placed on a formal education. young people·s interpretations of obtaining stable employment is subsequently explored in this chapter. I then examine members' of Generation ·75 strategies used to explain both reasons for life·s unpredictability and those used to help alleviate the strains of economic hardships.
Being_ a Student is the .. Best Time.. ofOne·s Life .. !Es lo ,\Jejor)""
Because people that I talked to in the city of Lugo stressed the importance of preparing children (see Chapter Four). they argued that they could not have many because they would not be able to ··properly.. educar/os'· or afford such commodities as .. ropct de marca (name brand-clothing) and formal educations for their children. And although
151 people recognised that receiving a formal education did not guarantee future employment. they also recognised that failure to obtain schooling could guarantee a bad one (also see
Collier 1997. Chapter Four). Along with spending time with one·s child in order to
.. properly·· educate them. parents therefore also placed emphasis on their children· s formal education. especially in an urban centre (also see Collier 1997). Moreover. people in Lugo viewed the life of a student as being the best time in one·s life because of an active social life and limited responsibilities in comparison to an adult's responsibilities.
For example. Mirta. a 39 year old cook who lives in Lugo \Vith her four children and sees her husband on occasion due to his job \Vhich requires him to travel extensively. works at a popular restaurant that university students frequent. Mirta told me that her four
-:hildren--all of whom are in their late teens and early twenties--should make the best of this point in their life cycle and suggested that they should ··disfrutar (have fun)"". She explained to me that to have children at a young age. such as she had. \.Vould take away from the best years of their li\·es. Mirta tells her own children to wait until they are 26 years of age or later. before starting their own families.
Indeed. throughout my fieldwork. students and parents all said that the life of a student is ··tu mejor (the best) ... Verbs such as .. apruvechar (to make good use or to seize the occasion)'·, and to --disfrurar (have funf were commonly used when referring to a student·s life stage. It \Vas argued that as a student. one did not have responsibilities of adult life such as maintaining a stable job. paying bills. being responsible for one's children. and self-sacrificing for one·s family2. That is. as a student. one was expected to
have an active social life and to disfrwar as much as possible before acquiring the
responsibilities of adulthood. Ho\vever. a student's life was also recognised as being
stressful. especially during examination periods.
The Importance of a Formal Education and Competitive Examinations
In the context of Galicia's high unemployment rate. especially among the youth
and women. receiving a formal education has increasingly become more important. At the
same time, getting into one·s chosen discipline of study has become more difficult
because of increasing competition. Moreover, obtaining professional employment, which
is the goal of most of the university students whom I knev,: in Lugo. is equally difficult.
During my interview with a 3 5 year old government employee (fimcionariu) who
also attended the university in Lugo while her 15 year old son was being raised with her
3 parents in a nearby town • she told me that more Spaniards are attending university
nowadays as opposed to a decade ago. Indeed. in an article in one regional newspaper. a
Galician journalist wrote that the number of university students has doubled in the community [Autonomous Community of Galicia] in the last decade (La Voz de Galicia.
2 As I discussed in the previous chapter. it was common for people to criticise younger people· s behaviour and life choices based on their perceptions that young people did not mature as fast as had older generations because younger people \vere perceived as being egofsla.
3 The practice of grand-parents participating in the raising of their grand-children while the child's parent(s) work abroad is not uncommon in Galicia (see. for example, Kelley· 1988: and Roseman 1993 and forthcominga).
153 July 18. 1999:12).
Throughout my period of fieldwork. there was constant talk about ··eslres (stress) .. and ..tension (tension)"· in a student's life as outcomes of the pressure to perform \Nell on various exams such as the university entrance exams. the end of the term university exams
\vhich many people fail and have to retake in September. and the civil servant exams. or oposiciones.
From early June until mid-July in I 999. regional and local newspapers overtlowed
\vith articles about the university entrance exams and the oposiciones (civil servant exams). It felt as though the city was under siege during both the university entrance exams and the oposiciones. I could not go anY'--vhere either without having a discussion with others about the exams. or without overhearing people talk about the pressures of exams. about who had passed (ha aprobado) or tailed (ha suspendido) these. While living in residence. I was able to observe first hand how university students dealt with the pressures to perform well on exams. In addition to going out \Vith friends to pubs and bars to hm·e fun (di.sji·war) (explored in the foliO\\·ing chapter). other activities which university students pursued during the pressures of the examination period included. for
4 example. playful joking and watching television sitcoms • The excerpts below. taken from my fieldnotes on the atmosphere in residence during the end of the course exan1s which began in June and ended in July, give some indication of university students' experiences.
4 See. for example. Gulevich (1995: Chapter Five) on play and joking in Galicia.
154 and displaying, of estres during this time period.
June 7. 1999 The atmosphere in residence is much more studious (When l first arrived. there was more socializing in one another·s cuarlus (rooms) and more gossip about relationships between people]. Now, everyone greets one another and after a ··Que tal esuis [hov.-· are you]?"" asks how one another's exams are go mg.
June 9. 1999 In the computer room, E\·a comments on how I always seem so happy. She tells me that it must be because I don "t work a lot, adding that all I do is talk with people and take notes and "No tienes examenes [You don't have any exams]'". she concluded.
June 10. 1999 While in the cafeteria \Vatching an episode of Allv McBeal. people are talking about Pablo and his not having \vritten an exam. My roommate tells me that he said that he did not study enough so didn "t feel prepared for it. Students in residence. his friends. all seem very concerned and a great deal of gossip surrounds his decision to opt out of\vriting the exam [instead. he will write the exam in September]. My roommate and Alba got up from their chairs and went to the reception area, where he was. and talked \vith him \Vhile I stayed back in the cafeteria catching up on the gossip surrounding his decision to write one of his exams in September. There is a great deal of group solidarity here in residence.
June 17. 1999 This morning, my roommate. Alba and I ate rather rapidly. sharing little conversation. Their minds seem to be elsewhere. They are both stress~d out because of the exams. The atmosphere at times in residence is so thick. you can almost hear their thoughts, going over materials read and studied for an exam. [Are we tense like this in Canada during examination periods?] In the comedor [dining room] this afternoon, I notice that the atmosphere isn't as ·stuffy' as in the hallways
155 and computer lab. People are much more playful to my delight and surprise. [Maybe I'm only noticing it now because rm understanding their jokes more or maybe they·\·e become accustomed to my presence and aren "t watching their words as much?] People are throwing pieces of bread to one another across the long tables. I ask myself if a food fight is going to break out. Nope ... This throwing of bread \vas a very playful act \vhich most people. including myself. participated in.
June 20. I 999 Alba stayed m my cuano for awhile and we talked about what's on our minds. She tells me that she·s stressed out and frustrated \\·ith herself for her lack of concentration. She tells me that she feels as though she has wasted a lot of time ... We talk for nearly two hours, until my roommate comes in. She clunks on her bed and relates to us that she won't be ready for her exam tomorrow. I am surprised at her outburst because she has been getting up very early and spending her days upstairs in the library. I"m equally surprised that she doesn't know what time it's at. She begins to cry and we try consoling her. We later go to the bar for bocadilfos [sandwiches]. Prior to my roommate· s arrival. Alba also tells me that she has been seeing a psychologist who, she says while pointing to her head. helped her ··cambiar e/ chip [change the chip]". She tells me that she was very depressed this year in school and in life in general... Alba tells me that she is feeling insecure and scared about the up-and-coming prospects of finishing university. She tells me that she worries a great deal about finding stable employment. She tells me that she is equally scared about \Vorking full-time. She has alwa::.'s been in school. She tells me that she \vorries about the change from being a full-time student to a full-time employee. Although. Alba also tells me that she needs to start working in order to help her parents out with her younger siblings' educations. Alba's story is an indication of the amount of stress that young people are under with the pressures to perform well on exams. feelings of obligation for the family. and their fears of entering the job market and competition within it.
!56 June 21. 1999 ... Alba left for her casa today. Later on in the evening, she calls from her casa and tells me that she left because she couldn "t concentrate in residence.
Prior to having to experience university exams. students in their final year of secondary school enroll in the Curso Orientaci6n Universitario (known by the official acronym COU). \Vhich is a year of school designed to help prepare students with the writing of the university entrance exams. In 1999. the entrance exams took place across
Galicia from June 17 until the end of July, depending on the desired field of study. More than 13 000 Galician students are said to have 'WTitten the exams which determine future acceptance into universities (La Voz de Galicia. June 17. 1999: 12).
Alba repeatedly mentioned that she \Vished she would have scored higher in the seleclividad (entrance exams) because she then would have been offered a beca
(scholarship) from the university in Lugo. She told me that one of her younger sisters had not scored high enough on these exams and as a result had been denied entry into her discipline of choice. las ciencias (the sciences). Alba and my roommate in the university residence frequently \Vanted to talk about the system of se/ecriridad and about how students in Canada came to choose their field of study. They often commented that the system in Spain ..noes justa (is not fair)"". Both Carmen and Fatima also talked about ho,,· they too perceived the system as being ··unfair'·, vvhile complaining about the restrictive number ofpla::as (limited number of places) in each university· discipline. It was well known how many pla::as were available for the upcoming university year. Indeed. in La
157 Voz de Galicia. one article outlined how many plazas were available in each discipline in each Galician university (June 8. 1999: 12).
Often. Galicians were able to follo\v the process of students "niting the series of university entrance exan1s because regional ne\vspapers also systematically covered these.
Newspaper articles included such topics as the following: ..No estoy neiTiosa. estoy histerica (I'm not nervous, l"m hysterical [one student commented]"' (El Pro2:reso. June
13.1999: 12): ··La familia. clare para el·itar Ia ansiedad de los esllldiantes (Families. the key· to prevent student anxiety)"' (El Pro2:reso. June 13,1999: 13): ··La hora de Ia ~·erdad:
Pocvs nerl'ios en Ia segundajornada de las pruebas de Ia selectividad, que concluyen hoy
(The hour of truth: Few· are nervous in the second day of exams \Vhich [for some] end today)"(El Progreso, June 18. 1999: 12 ): ..Lugo supero a! resto de Galicia en Ia selecti\'idad ([Students in] Lugo surpassed the rest of [students in] Galicia in the selection)'' (El Pro2:reso, July 2, 1999: 1): ·'Un 8-1% de los alumnos gal/egos pasaron Ia selectil'idad (84% ofGalician students passed the selection (exams])" (La Voz de Galicia.
July 2. 1999: l ).
University students \Vere not the only people in Galicia studying for exams. During the month of 1999. there was widespread competition for employment with Sergas.
Galicia's Health Service Sector. Regional newspapers also covered the process and outcome of these exams which were referred as oposiciones. For example. articles ranged from topics such as: '·A !a segunda prueba del Sergas acudieron entre el 96 y el I 00% de
158 opositores (On the second day of testing for Sergas. between 96% and 100% of people went to write the exams) .. (El Pro2reso. July 28. 1999: 6); .. Igualdad de condiciones y nerviosismo en las oposiciones del Sergas (People who are writing the competitive exams are equally nervous [compared with students wTiting entrance university exams).. (La Voz de Galicia. July 28. 1999: 39): .. :\leis de 15.000 opositores sejuegan 1.300 pla::as en el
Sergas (1'vlore than 15 000 people are competing for 1.300 open positions vvith Sergasf
(La Voz de Galicia. July 28, 1999: l ); .. Las tasas de oposiciones a! Sergas son de las mcis elevadas de Espana (The rates of people \Hiting the Sergas exams are the highest in
Spain)"'( La Voz de Galicia. August 3. 1999: 4): and in one article entitled '·(,Opositas o
Trabajas? (Are you writing competitive exams or vvorking?)"' (La Voz de Galicia. June 27.
1999: l-4 ). the author outlines the perspectives of people who are in their late twenties. early thirties and .. are still dependent on father for money because it is impossible to ha,·e employment while studying and preparing for oposiciones (competitive government exams).. (June 27. 1999: 3. translation my own). The journalist vvrites that .. by studying for these exams. one is repeating one's university degree (liene que repetirla carrera) (June
27. 1999: 2). Indeed. walking dovvntO\vn the city of Lugo, one passes by people with their books in hand studying in outdoor cates or on a bench. During the exams in Lugo. in the late afternoon. there was more traffic coming and going from the university gymnasium. where these exams \vere being written. Some of the students \Nhom I knew were already talking about buying the necessary books which guided one's studying for these civil
159 servant exams. Carmen. for example. \vas in a graduate programme of study but also
began to reviev.-· books on topics such as Spanish law. and Spanish history for future
reference when other government employment \VOuld be posted. There \vas also a separate
new·spaper called El Preparador de Oposiciones (The Trainer for the Competitive Exams)
\vhich was circulated on a monthly basis. The new·spaper provided information on topics
such as job placement and general information for prospective candidates (opositores) on
what to study. Carmen \\:ould periodically flip through the newspaper to view when there
would be upcoming positions and for reference to material needed in order to better
prepare for the exams.
In my conversations with my landlady, for example, she frequently talked about
how her 30 year old daughter was making her second attempt for a position with Sergas.
My landlady told me that her daughter had begun to study two years prior to her \\Titing
the exams.
Public Knowled2:e of Performances on the Exams On Julv- I. 1999. Carmen. Fatima. Lucia. Julio. and mvselfwere- scheduled to meet with a prospective landlady at an apartment which she was renting. On our way to the apartment. \Ve passed by the magisterio (teacher's college). A crowd of people stood in line. \Vaiting to look at the names posted on the entrance doonvay. Most of the people
\Vaiting in queue looked to be in their thirties or older. I asked Carmen why they \Vere in a line up in front of the magisterio. Carmen told me that they wanted to tind out if their
160 child had passed the series of university entrance exams. Carmen further explained that. even though the newspapers were going to list the names of those students who passed the exams. parents (and their children) \Vere anxious to know \vhether their children had been successful on the exams. Indeed. the following day. both the newspapers. La Voz de
Galicia and El Pro!!reso included a special section \vhich listed all the names of Galician students who had successfully passed the exams. Lucia asked to borrow the newspapers in order that she look to see if some of her younger friends· names \Vere in the inserts. As she and I drank coffee in the living room. she would periodically shake her head in disapproval that a few of her friends· names were not included in the list of names and she guessed that it was either because thev. had decided not to write the exams or because the\.· had failed them. Later. her and Fatima could be heard in the kitchen talking about their friends whose names had not appeared in the nev,:spapers. While Fatima and Lucia talked about who had not passed the exams. Cam1en and I \Vere in the living room. talking about the civil servant exams and the difficulties in obtaining professional employment.
--Buscar e/trabajo es [acil pero encomralo es una otra cosa (Looking for work is easv but tindina it is another matterr·
Throughout my tieldwork the theme of employment was frequently talked about among members of Generation '75 and myself. In generaL however, most people "vhom I knev.; in Lugo talked about employment in Galicia and our conversations \VOuld usually lead into a discussion about employment opportunities in Canada for young people.
161 For example. I had several occasions to get to know the landlady of the apartment which Carmen. Fa tim a. Julio. Lucia. and myself rented during my second half of fieldwork. At this time. the landlady's 30 year old daughter was still living at home with her parents. During one of Carmen's and my visits with our landlady. she described to us el esrn!s (the stress) that her daughter was under. Her daughter had spent the past t\\·o years studying for one type of government employment. the Sergas exams. However. because of the limited number of pla::as (places). she was unsure whether she \vould be successful in obtaining a job with them. As a result ofthe competition. an oposiror (a person competing for a civil servant job) needs to have a high score on the exams. Our landlady described in great detail the depression that her daughter \Vas tighting because. as she related to Carmen and L --she is 30. single. jobless and still living at home··. While we sat and talked about this in the living room of the flat. our landlady told us that at that moment. her daughter sat in her bedroom. in the next room. studying for the exams.
As a 27 year old man. Roberto. who had only just graduated from university told me, ··Buscar el trabajo es jacii pero encontrarlo es una otra cosa (Looking for work is easy but tinding it is another matter) ... He further added that because there are so fe\Y jobs. one should study what one likes because --{a t·ida es corra (life is short)... \Vhen discussing the problem of finding \vork \Vith another 22 year old man who was in the military, he explained to me that one needs to find '·un trabajofijo (stable work)" but that it is extremely difficult to obtain it. He told me that the only reason he joined the military was
162 for economic stability. He also said that at present there are more \vomen than men joining the Spanish armed forces for this reason. Indeed. although Carmen said that she had chosen a can·era (degree) based on her passion for lwmanidades (the humanities). she said that she had also brietly considered joining the military last year with one ofher female friends. Although many people described the difticulties in finding stable employment as being somewhat out of their control, l also observed many instances in which members in
Generation ·75 successfully strategised in the wider context of the unstable market econom!c.
Adaptive Strategies
In Carmen's, Fatima's. Lucfa·s. Julio's. and my search for an apartment in July. I became aware of their criteria of what they wanted in an apartment. For example. they agreed that they \Vanted a spacious, clean. and bright apartment with large \..vindo,vs. and one which could be accessed by an elevator. Even though they had specific criteria. they were also flexible \Vith these when rent was taken into consideration.
We saw one apartment \Vhich they thought was "ml(V raro (very strange)" because of its layout. How·ever. it was large. bright and was accessible by an elevator. Yet. another apartment \Vhich we saw after the one which they thought to be .. muy raro .. \Vas not accessible by an elevator. This second apartment was dirty. especially the bathroom and kitchen \Vhere there \Vere noticeable cracks in the \Valls. ceiling, and both the bathroom· s and kitchen's floor tiles were loose. I thought with certainty that they· would not even
!63 consider such an apartment. especially in the context of the previous one which 1..ve had
seen. the one that they called ··rctra··. However. this apartment was much cheaper in rent
and as we gathered in one of the bedrooms. we talked about how we could easily fix the
broken toilet seat and floor tiles and how \Ve could get used to climbing the stairs to get to
the apartment instead of an elevator. [n the end. howe\·er. we decided against the
apartment because of one \Vhich we viewed the follo\ving day.
Although the rent \vas listed in the ne\\·spaper as being much more expensive. \Ve
nonetheless decided to see it. We would ask if the prospective landlady could lower the
rent in the summer as, vve \VOuld tell her. there were only going to be Carmen and I li ving
in it tmtil September when I would no longer be in Lugo, and when Fatima, Julio, and
Lucia were going to be moving in. Upon our arrival. as \Ve looked through the glass
entrance doorway into the building·s main hallway· \\·ith its glistering chandelier and
spectacular t1ooring, we sa\v right away that this apartment was going to meet their
criteria. The landlady show·ed us into the apartment building and we were equally
impressed with the elevator. it \vas much larger than \Ve had anticipated. The apartment
itself \vas \·erv clean. \Vith the sun·s ravs shining through the big window in the living .. "" -- _. - room, it was fully furnished with what appeared to be expensive furniture. there were also new beds in each bedroom. there were two bathrooms. and as Julio eagerly noted. a large television in the li ving room. In our negotiation with the landlady and her husband.
Carmen, Fatima. Julio, and Lucfa informed them that they would tlrst need to ask
164 permission from their parents before making any decisions about whether or not to rent the apartment. Ho\vever. \Vhen Carmen and Fatima later called their mother. there was no discussion of whether or not they should rent the apartment. Instead, they told their mother that they had decided to rent it. With expressive excitement. w·aving their hands in the air. and in very precise detaiL they listed to their mother the many features of the apartment: its television. t\VO bathrooms. new beds, bright living room, and its cleanliness. And although Carmen later noted to me... This apartment is more for [financially] well-off. working people. not for us students'·. for the rest of my field\vork. vve did live in this apartment and we were able to afford it because the landlady lowered the rent considerably during the summer. Even though \Ve told the landlady that Fatima. Julio. and Lucfa were going to be living at home. in their natal town in the province of A Corufia throughout the summer. more often, all of us. except for Lucia. lived here. When the landlady would call to say that she \\as going to drop in. Fatima and Julio, and their friends. if they \vere also staying with us in Lugo, would leave and only return once the landlady had left. On other occasions. if we \vere walking do-wntown and happened to see the landlady. Fatima and
Julio would quickly start walking in the opposite direction from the landlady in order that she not see them. We feared that should the landlady see them. she might make the assumption that there were more than two people living in the apartment and then increase the rent.
Through my search for an apmtment with these young people. I was able to
165 observe their flexibility with certain criteria. especially when money \Vas being considered.
If the apartment was cheap enough, such as the one with the broken floor tiles. these young
people would have sacrificed their wants if it meant saving money. Moreover. other
strategies used by people--which I interpret as adaptive means that help to better their
economic situations--include their mvn interpretations of \vhat a person needs in order to
better their chances of success in the market economy and therefore. their socioeconomic
circumstances in general.
Pedro. for example. often told Carmen to start preparing for the oposiciones
coming up in the next year. ··You have to keep your options open". he \VOuld sa:y. In
addition to keeping one·s options open. many people talked about pursuing a university
carrera which one likes because of the overall difficulties in obtaining stable employment
5 in any discipline . Carmen's mother. for example, reinforced the idea of choosing a
university carrera one likes to her two daughters. And although Carmen often commented
to me that she had follov.:ed ··her heart and not her head (el coraz6n y no Ia cabe::a)'· when deciding upon a carrera. the decision continued to be a source of great tension in
Carmen·s life. As she explained to me. she obtained a high grade on her university entrance level exams and could have pursued any carrera but chose to follow her heart and study in the field of humanidades. knowing that careers in las ciencias (the sciences) offer more opportunities for work.
5 Some degrees, of course, offer more options in the market economy than others.
166 In addition to a student's abilities and skills in school (see Coilier 1997: Chapter
Four) which are interpreted as being assets \Vhich help a student do well in his or her formal schooling and later in the market economy. many people also explained successes and failures in school. and in life in general. as being linked to a person's ··.werte (luck) ...
"Asi es Ia 1·ida (Such is life)''
'·Such is life (Asi es Ia vida)" was a common explanation that members of
6 Generation ·75 offered in the context of economic and emotional hardships . The young people whom I knew often explained a person's successes and failures using suerte. For example. in Carmen· s explanation of her father's economic successes, she would say that it is because he "has lots of luck (liene mucha .werte)". Similarly. Carmen often commented to me that her sister was like their father because she too has alway·s had luck
\vhich is retlected in her care-free personality. On the other hand. because Carmen sees herself as a person who \vorries a great deal and has had many personal struggles in her life. she does not have suerre and has to rely on her family and friends. along with her abilities and skills in school. to help her in life. Indeed, so pervasive is this theme of people dra\ving on suerte as an explanation for one's and others· successes or failures in
6 Herzfeld \Hites that. .. As ordinarily understood. [fatalism. a \videspread notion applied to people's worldviev..-J means passive and total resignation to future events" (Herzfeld l987b: 36). Although the people whom I knew in Lugo often talked about socioeconomic situations as being some\vhat out of their control. as I discussed above. this does not mean that they did not employ strategies. Moreover. although. many people explained one's successes or failures in life by also draw·ing on "luck''. I understand its use as being another \·vay of making sense out of their socioeconomic contexts.
167 life that many authors. such as Lame Ia Viera ( 1998) in her ethnography of people in the
city of Lugo. have extensively analysed it (Lamela Viera 1998: 66-73). For example.
Lamela Viera notes that, in Lugo, suerte is always used when a person is comparing their
situation to that of another person·s socioeconomic and personal circumstances. She
argues that its use is ambiguous because people refer to it in different contexts. such as
when explaining a person ·s success or failure in life, as a means to explain the
unpredictable. and as being a part of people's worldvie\v in the sense that events are often
explained through .. destiny.. ([bid.). However. Lamela Viera also emphasises that both
social and economic competition underlie these different contexts (Ibid.). Indeed. Lamela
Viera goes on to \vrite that whereas in rural Galicia. people's invoking of suerte may be
7 associated vvith views about the world as being .. hazardous (azaroso f • people. s use of
suerte in Lugo reflects their view of the world as being ··unjust (injuswr· (lamela Viera
1998: 70) . .. There is a constant fight for securit_~,.- ·, Lamela Viera explains and it is
··because wage work does not !astjorerer.. (lamela Viera 1998: 71 . translation my O\Vn. emphasis in original). In addition. the dichotomy bet\veen following the heart or the head
(el corazon o Ia cabeza) and embracing an outlook similar to carpe diem was often used
by informants to explain their decision-making. For example. as the 35 year old female
7 See. for example. Lis6n-Tolosana ( 1973 ): Kelley ( 1999a); and Roseman (forthcoming b) for descriptions of ways in which people in different rural areas in Galicia use suerte as an explanation for events such as death and its relation to the supernatural. Also see anthropologist Ellen Badone ( 1989: especially Chapter Nine) for a comparison with Brittany and the relation of Catholicism and faith to destiny and the supernatural.
168 funcionario. whom [introduced earlier. told me during my interview with her: ··La vida es coria. son tres dfas. y solo nos queda una (Life is short. it lasts three days. and there's only one left) ... In this sense. she further explained to me that ··young people need to disjhllar
(have fun)'· because. as informants of all ages told me. life as a student is the best (es lo mejor). Ironically. however, although both older and younger informants frequently talked about young people \Vanting to avoid responsibility (see Chapter Four on child-rearing). students were also said to have to be very responsible for their future and ensure that they keep their options open by performing \\·ell on exams. Furthermore. some young university students demonstrated a level of adult responsibility beyond the context of doing \vel! in their courses. and at times. such as during searches for an apartment in the city of Lugo. this capacity proved to be quite valuable.
Conclusions
Most people told me that economic reasons played a role in the low fertility rate
(i.e .. the high unemployment rate). The students whom I got to know \vel! in Lugo talked about having to remain flexible with one's ideal life cycle transitions because ofthe difficulties involved in finding stable employment. In general. students remained economically dependent on their parents much longer because of the long durations of their formal schooling and training. In a separate interview with Pedro. for example. he pointed out to me that people are in school longer which means that they only tind v..:ork at a later age. In tum, Pedro told me that people only considered having children at a later age
169 when their schooling was finished and when they had employment
Young people became familiar \vith the competitive nature of the market economy through their experiences in the system of formal schooling. In addition to remaining flexible with one·s life plan. young people demonstrated their adaptive strategies in the context of their socioeconomic circumstances. In this chapter, I explored. through the example of young students· search for an apartment. hO\v their strategies. such as lying to our landlady about hov.· many students were going to be living in Lugo during the summer. helped them to gain an advantage over their economic resources.
I interpret people· s world views and \vays of explaining one· s and others· socioeconomic and personal situations as being reflexive means which may help informants come to accept and navigate through life·s instability. However, with career options available to both genders. I \Vender hov.; young \Nomen and men \\·ill come to terms with the possibility of being employed in different cities. away from their partner or spouse. Will this situation be explained as being one· s destiny or as being a reflection of one·s suer!e? Or. will women be perceived as being egoisla for pursuing a career away from family members and friends?
In the following chapter, I continue my discussion of young university women ·s experiences of femininity which I began exploring in Chapter Four in the context of motherhood. I specifically describe the socialising practices of students in downtown bars. pubs. and discotheques which are good locations to observe changing gender practices. I
170 further pursue interpretations of libertad and the remaking of gender identities as these relate to the 'low' fertility rate.
171 Chapter Seven: Courtin~ Practices and Femininitv in Generation ·75
In this chapter. I focus on how my female informants in Generation ·75 experience
both a cultural construction of gender difference and negative social evaluations of their
femininity. In addition. I found that female body image is an important part of female
gender identity· in Lugo. Many young women that I knew strove towards meeting the social
expectations of what is considered to be not only ideal feminine behaviour but also the
ideal female body.
In this part of the thesis. I draw extensively upon my experiences of participant- observation among members of Generation ·75 and the ritual of going out (ir de cvpas).
The environment in which socializing took place was an ideal site for participant- observation. especially in the context of observing gender practices and social evaluations of these. Although at the time I was not a\vare ofthe full significance of the socializing practices which took place on Ia cal!e de vinos (the main street in downtov;n Lugo \Vhere the bars and pubs are located). in \\Titing this thesis. it has become clear to me that this space \vas indeed a prime location in \vhich I was able to observe and participate in young
1 \VOmen 'sand men ·s negotiation of gender identities • I specifically explore acts of ligar (to
·hook up· with a member of the opposite sex). As vvell. I focus broadly on. fo r example. young women ·s pursuit of leisure activities in Ia calle (street) as these connect to Ia
1 See Cowan ( 1991) on changing gender practices and identities in Greece since the opening of cafeterias.
172 ineswbilidad (instability) of romantic relationships and to the remaking and restrictions of
\vomen (after Abu-Lughod 1998: and Gulevich 1995). In addition. I ask ho\v the scrutinizing gaze and criticism of young female behaviours and performances in Ia calle interact with people"s notions of gender difference.
Beyond informants· discourse of being. or not wanting to be. egoista (explored in
Chapter Five). through my participation in the actiYity of""ir de capas (going out for drinks) ... I observed young women·s performances and heard people·s criticisms of
\VOmen who were perceived as over-participating and over-identifying \Vith leisure activities.
/r de Copas (GoinQ. Out For Drinks)
I was pleased w·hen, on my fourth day of fieldw·ork, Antonia, a graduate student whom I had met through a Galician anthropologist at the university in Lugo only a couple of davs after mv arrival in LuQ.o. asked me to Q.O out with her and her female friends to ,.1 ""' - ..... supper and later to a night out downtown. Antonia picked me up in her car near the entrance to the university residence where I stayed during the first half of fieldwork. Tv.-o of Antonia· s female friends. who are sisters. had joined us for pizza. Carmen joined our group at 12:30 a.m. at which point we headed for downtown. I was initially ovenvhelmed with the crowd of people in the street, known asIa calle de vinos~ . Many individuals were
~ People in their late thirties and early forties told me that \vhen they \Nere younger, they used to engage in socialising activities in downtov.n Lugo, inside the perimeter of the mural/a. in the area called Circulo de las Artes. As Lamela Viera ( 1998) also explains. in the last ten years. since the opening of bars and pubs along the calle de
173 drinking on the street which ran parallel to the Cathedral. [ndeed. we \valked past the
Cathedral in order to get access to the street v.·here the bars and pubs \Vere located. Most people seemed to be travelling in a group. or as informants later told me. pandillas (groups of friends). At our first stop. we met up with more of Antonia·s female friends. Then there were eight of us in total. three of whom were sisters. and the members of our group ranged between the ages of20 and 24. None ofthe women were in romantic relationships. My companions· makeup was vvell applied and most of the young women on the calle de vinos vvore similar stylish clothing. halter tops, or tight-fitting t-shirts. and snug black. grey or navy blue pants. I felt a little underdressed in comparison to the others. having vvom loosely fitting jeans and a plain white blouse. clothing similar to that \vhich most women wore while spending time in the university residence itself'. We shared a large drink at one
vinos. young people have opted to socialise in these establishments as opposed to the Circulo de las Artes (lamela Viera 1998: 33 ). On changing courtship practices and intersex organisation in Escalona. Andalusia. see. for example. Sarah Uhl's (1985) article.
3 [n this context. hov..: ever. it would be incorrect to assume that the difference between what women in the university residence--most of whom are from smaller communities--wore and that which women from the city of Lugo wore as being evidence of a rural and urban distinction. As Roseman ( 1998) reminds us, physical appearances are also situational. Roseman demonstrates that in rural areas in Galicia women also wear makeup and stylish clothing when they go out but \v·hen they are working. they \\·ear appropriate working clothes. Although [did not see many women \Vho lived in residence in Lugo wear tight-fitting clothing and makeup. it is also important to remember that these students were studying for their final exams. In addition, many displayed other forms of concern for their physical appearances. Some women whom I kne\V frequently talked about ··good"' nutrition. Another woman. for example. injected a fluid protein in her scalp every morning in order that she might grow longer. thicker hair. I would watch as her face contorted under the pain of the needle which she injected and questioned why she did this to herself. ··Because'·, she commented, ··r want more hair (Quiero tener mcls
174 of the first pubs. The alcoholic beverage \vas a litre \Vhich consisted of a combination of
coca-cola. red wine and Granada liqueur. We danced. as did other groups. in a circle to
predominantly Latin American dance music. although some of it was in the English
language. The pub was crowded and I noticed that the women looked after one another.
protecting each other from the blows from other young people· s dancing bodies. That
night. \ve went to six different establishments. At various intervals. we stopped inside
establishments or on the street in order that one of the women could speak to a person
whom she knew. At the quieter locations. \ve talked a little about Canada. but mostly we
talked about relationships with men, which was a main topic of conversation throughout
the summer. The young university women teased the youngest of the three sisters about
her so-called novio (boyfriend) \Vho played on the city"s basketball team. Because the
young women poked fun at her most of the night. joking about this basketball player. [
asked if she was indeed dating him at vvhich she burst out laughing and said that she
\Vished she could date him. \Ve stayed out until 5:30 a.m. which was considered an early
night! With the passing of time and my increasing participation in the ritual of going out. I
became accustomed to joining young people during these long nights of socialising. an
activity which \vas expected of adolescents and young adults. Indeed. many people told me
that some students took naps from 9 p.m. in the evening until 12:3 0 a.m. or I a.m. at which point they got up. and prepared themselves for a night out \Vith friends.
pelo r·. This woman also whitened her teeth using a toothpaste bleach.
175 Preparing For a Night Out With Friends
Once I moved in with Carmen. Fatima. Julio and another female friend. I was able to actively participate in the ritualized act of getting ready for a night out with friends.
However. prior to my moving in with these uni,·ersity students. I initially participated in the act of getting ready for a night out with Carmen and Fatima while visiting their mother·s casa in an industrial town in the province of A Corufia. Before shmvering. we tried on several items of clothing from Carmen's and Fatima's joint closet. They shared each others· clothing for the most part and since I did not have the 'proper· clothing for a night out. I wore theirs throughout the summer. Although trying on clothes may seem to be a mainly playful act. we also took it seriously and Sofia, their mother. had the ultimate
\Vord on what looked best. Indeed. her participation \vas of crucial importance and based on how her daughters· clothes tit them. she would comment on whether they had gained weight or on how tired they looked in certain colours. I was once told to \Vear a blueish green lace-embroidered tank top: however. I felt uncomfortable in this garment because it
\vas see-through. Nevertheless. Sofia reassured me that it looked wonderful and that the colour made my eyes stand out (indeed. during my fie[dv.. ·ork in Galicia. women often suggested that I should wear blue or green tops because of my green eye colour). I did wear that top. but did not take off the black cotton fitted jacket. which they also lent to me. even inside the hot and sticky pubs!
At first Carmen or her mother \Vould blow dry and style my hair. I would watch
176 Carmen and Fatima put on makeup. They \vould also apply my makeup. as I \Vas not accustomed to wearing any. Sofia would help me out \Vith this aspect of ·getting ready' as well. She began with a facial cream which she said was very important and was needed for a base and then explained what she was doing \Vith Carmen and Fatima·s eyeliner and eye shadow. Sofia did not put a great deal of various makeup items on my face because. as she pointed out to me. it was best to gradually introduce me to this aspect of .. Being a \voman
(Ser mujerf. As she applied the makeup to my face. I asked why she was not wearing any at which she told me that she \vas past that age where it was considered acceptable and needed. Ho·wever. it \Yas clear from looking through her photo albums. that \vhen she \Vas younger. she used makeup. nail polish and similar feminine ·trademarks·. Indeed. when she \vas younger she had won a beauty pageant in the city of Lugo. I continued w·ith my inquiry and commented that women in their forties in the city of Lugo still \vore makeup and she replied that it is important to look good in the city but in the to\vn where she nO\\' resided. it was not necessary and most older women did not spend as much time on their appearance (also see Gulevich 1995. Chapter Four).
Once Fatima. who was usually the first to be ready·. and Cam1en and I \\·ere dressed with various amounts of makeup on, Sofia then looked us over and made further recommendations or gave us her approval. This pattern of getting ready remained the same except on Saturdays when Carmen and Fatima would \vax their eyebrows. and remove any· other facial hair (depilar). Their mother kept the wax in a small pot in one of her kitchen
177 cupboards. [ usually ,..,·arched with my notebook in hand at the kitchen table. catching up on fieldnotes. The first time I saw them with the wax. I asked why they used it at w·hich
Carmen replied. ··Because you ne,·er know how close you might get with a boy... Every time I savv Carmen use the \vax. I would take advantage of the opportunity to tease her about the possibility of getting together with a young man, which would lead both of us to laugh. It was soon clear to me that women in Lugo enjoyed joking about the prospect of
4 getting together with a young man (to ligar) .
Following Ia Red Social
Whether in the city of Lugo. or in Carmen and Fatima's natal tmvn in the pro,·ince of A Corufia. we followed a pattern of following Ia red social (the movement of crowds: literally netv-.-ork of people) on Ia ca/le de vinos, the name of the street in both places where the majority of the bars and pubs are located. In the city of Lugo. \Ve always started from one end of Ia calle de vinos, the end which \vas closest to the Cathedral. Young
5 people in Lugo usually go out on Thursdays and Saturdays • In my experiences of going
4 As f"ve noted before. during my fieldwork. Carmen and others only referred to. even whenjoking. to heterosexuality.
5 When 1 asked voung women at \vhat age thev started to go out. answers \·aried ., - - . .._ according to socialisation practices in their a .tsa. That is, answers w·ere dependent on \vhether the young woman was the eldest ofthe siblings, an only child, or whether she had other siblings. Based on participant-observation, [ saw young people out at bars and pubs who may have been in their late teens. [t was. hO\vever. difficult to estimate age as young women were well dressed and \vore makeup \Vhich may have given some the appearance of being older. The bars and pubs which we frequented in the city of Lugo. however. were mainly populated by university age students and inhabitants in their thirties. In the industrial town in A Corufia where Carmen and Fatima had grown up. bars
178 out with young people. we always started out at the bars as the alcohol was cheaper there
and they served free tapas (bar food snacks: literally appetizers). Patrons of these bars
were usually older than us and we often sat down on the stools at the main bar where one
places a drink order. At times. members of Antonia·s pandilla included four young men
whom Antonia had known for many years. These men usually ordered rum and coca-cola.
or bourbon and coca-cola, vvhereas the young women (including myself) usually drank
claras which consisted of beer and soda pop. Some of us also drank alcoholic apple cider
or red wine. It was common to share capas (drinks) with one another and we normally
bought our own as opposed to each of us buying a round of alcoholic beverages as is
6 common among members of older generations in Lugo .
Bars \vere smaller than pubs and did not play loud dancing music. Some bars also
had tables located away from the area where vve placed our drink orders. Pubs, in contrast.
are large open spaces with dim lighting. There were long serving areas where clients
placed orders for drinks as in the bars: however. there were no free tapas and the
beverages \\·ere more expensive. The atmosphere catered to a younger audience. playing loud dance music and providing an open space to dance. We almost always ended up at the end of the street arout1d 5:30 a.m .. having been from bar to bar and then from pub to pub
and pubs were mainly populated with young people. many possibly in their late teens. The overaU population ofthe tovm is, how·ever, quite young.
6 I periodically \Vent out with \'Vomen and men in their thirties and forties and it is on these occasions that I experienced the practice of each person buying a round of drinks. As a student. however. I was not aUo\-ved to pay for any drinks.
179 during the previous four to five hours. The last pub which \Ve ahvays frequented also catered to an older clientele. providing tables outside and servers who took drink orders.
And then. there \Vas the option. which we most often pursued. of entering the pub and dancing on the dance floor which was located near the back of the establishment. away from the entrance.
I remember once having gone to an adjacent pub with Ia pandilla whose members
\vere all in university and near graduation or. as \vith Antonia and Carmen. in a graduate programme of study. and watched as one of the young men that \Vas part of the pandilla got upset at us for having stayed too long at this one pub. He stormed out of the pub and he would have gone home had we not stopped him. He complained that it was getting late
(it was almost 6:30a.m.) and that we should have, by then. been at the discotheque
(discoteca) which was located outside fa muralla rornana. across from the magisrerfa
(teacher's college). Due to his own concern about ensuring that we keep with our usual patterned schedule, \Ve left the calle de vinos and headed for the discoteca.
The discvteca is a much larger version of the pubs encountered on the calle de
\·inos and at this establishment. techno music blared out of numerous speakers. 'J./e would normally end our nights out at the discoreca where we would stay until 8 a.m. Unlike the locations on the cal!e de l'inos. at the discoteca. \Ve \vere normally greeted by bouncer employees who kept a surveillance over the establishment.
On the calle de vinos. how·ever. much bustling from location to location took place.
180 Besides the drinking. usually of calimocho. a mixture of red vvine and coca-cola in large two litre coca-cola bottles. on the street. some young people smoked chocolate. a mixture ofhashish and tobacco. but it was more common to smell and see people smoking cigarenes solely from tobacco. As much as vve had to fight our way through the pool of people inside the pubs and the discoteca. oftentimes. we also had to push our \vay though the over-crowded street. Yet. I ne\·er sa\v an ambulance waiting on the perimeters or many patrolling members of the guardia civil (civil guard, police), as one vvould normally in a
Canadian context. But then again. I never encountered a sick person. although some people may have gotten sick from the alcohol. Nor. despite the crowds. did I see aily physical tights. Quite the contrary, vvhen walking and at times pushing our vvay through the crovvds. we would commonly see two people embracing on the side of the street.
To Lifmr with Someone for a Brief Period or for the Ni2:ht
There are several levels. or processes to figar (getting together: literally meaning
·'to join") with someone for a brief period or for the nighe. Women are said to cafentarfo.
(heat a man up). Men are said to enroflarse with a woman. (literally to \Vind up with her: figuratively the expression could be translated as ··a roll in the hay··). Walking do\m the calle de vinos at night and in the early hours of the morning, in the city of Lugo, one normally walks past a number of people in the throes of passion. I \Vas told by informants
7 In the regional newspapers, such as La Voz de Galicia and El Pro2:reso. personal ads outlining a person· s interest in finding a romantic relationship w·ith someone were inserted everyday under the heading entitled: Linea Amistad (Friendship Line). Some of the ads were directed at heterosexuals and some were directed at same sex partners.
181 that a couple can also go into an alley. Or. alternatively into a car, depending on whether either one of the pair has access to one. To ligar with someone does not necessarily include sexual intercourse. although it can. Most often. among the women whom I knew. kissing and touching took place but little beyond this as they were concerned about their reputations. among other thingss.
The young single university \vomen whom I knew. almost always got together with someone by \'.:ay of an intermediary friend (also see Uhl 1985 on friendships in Andalusia.
Spain). That is, most often a man will ask a female friend of the vvoman in question. to inquire \vhether the woman might be interested in --getting together·· (ligar) with him. I did not encounter a situation in which a woman asked a man if he would be interested in getting together. Although a man usually \vent through a \voman · s friend. sometimes men were also direct \Vith their requests or in their admittance that they would like to figar \Vith a particular vvoman. One incident particularly stands out in my mind. I remember one man getting very annoyed with Carmen and me. We were dancing in a circle with others in our pandilla as well as with this man and his male friends at a pub on the ca!le de \'inos. The man got angry \vhen none of the women \van ted to go of[ outside of the pub and onto the sidewalk or to an alley. to ligar with any of the men. He was very blatant about ho\v he and his friends had just wasted time on us with nothing to show for it. I was surprised at
s Informants told me that most men carry a condom in their \Vallet and some women (very fe w) carry one in their purse. However, condom vending dispensers were located on the outside of buildings, specifically near the pharmacies.
182 his openness about his and his friends· expectations but Carmen later told me that this kind of forwardness is not unusual.
During a three day outdoor festival (fiesta) in the industrial to"vn \vhere Fatima and
Carmen were raised. I witnessed several occasions on which the 'Nomen whom I had gone to thejiesla with had suddenly and very unexpectedly gone off to ligar with a man. For example. one night while I stood with a few hundred people. \Vatching a live concert. I found myself suddenly alone among people whom I did not recognize. I must have been observing the concert for some time because \.vhen I had to quickly move a\vay from the flying calimocho which young people were spraying all around where I stood. I noticed that the women with whom I had gone to the fiesta were now no\vhere in sight. Within a few minutes. however. Carmen reappeared and explained that she had been off fixing up one of her friends with an interested man. When Carmen and I started our \Valk back to her casa. we were accompanied by half of the women with whom we had gone to the fiesta. I listened to their talk about their experiences \vith young men that night. We also talked about the other women and \Ve guessed that they must have remained at the jiesla with men.
The above vignettes are examples of a vivid, somewhat chaotic form of romantic ineswbilidad. Moreover. most young people in Lugo made it clear to me that long-term romantic relationships are not always stable.
183 Romantic Inestabilidad
Although Fatima and Julio had been together as a couple for just over a year at the time of my fieldwork. when I \\·ould comment to Carmen on how· happy they appeared to be. she would often recount her ov..· n experiences in a relationship which had lasted seven years. She \Vould often say that '·Toda est,/ bien ahora (All is good now"). Pero hace solo un aiio y pico que elias estan juntos (But they have only been together just over a year).
Nunca se sabe lo que ocurrfa manana (Nobody kno\vS what tomorrow will bring)"'.
Carmen concluded by adding that her boyfriend and she had had a good relationship tor the first three years but that because of his egoismo (selfishness) and materialism. she felt alone in the relationship and had to get out of it. Although many of the university women whom I knew had never had boyfriends. the men in Antonia's pandilla had all been or were in long-term commitments. Yet, these men's girlfriends never came out with us. And it was not uncommon to see some of the men vvho had girlfriends ligar with other vvomen.
One early morning. after a night out. Carmen and I started walking back to our apartment. We \vere accompanied by Enrique. a member of Antonia's pandilla. Once we had reached the entrance of the apartment building. Carmen and Enrique told me to head up to the apartment alone. After I had nearly completed warming the milk over the stove and buttering the tostadas (packaged toast) tor our regular snack food. Cam1en came in and sat down at the kitchen table. She told me that one of Enrique's male friends was romantically interested in me and had asked Enrique to inquire about whether I might be
184 interested in him. Carmen said that although she had informed Enrique that I \vas in a
relationship with a Canadian man. she 'vvould nevertheless ask me. I immediately
responded that although I thought the man in question was ··un buen chico (a nice man:
literally a good manr' I had no romantic interest whatsoever in him. Nor \VOuld [ have in
anyone. I added. because of my long term involvement \Vith a man in Canada. Both
Carmen and Enrique. ho\vever. had decided to inquire because as Enrique later explained
to me. my boyfriend in Canada would never kno\v of my involvement with another man
here in Galicia. Carmen also informed me that Enrique himself had tried to /igor with her
\vhich had surprised Carmen because of Enrique's apparent long term commitment to his
2:irlfriend. However. follov.rin2: this demonstration of mv faithfulness to mv bovfriend in ~ - ......
Canada. the men whom I met throughout the summer \vho had expressed their interest in
getting to know me romantically had. upon my rejection. seemed to admire my decision
and said that I was linda (nice and thoughtful; literally pretty), adding that it is hard to find
nice girls nowadays. Many men also took on a rather protective role. When a man whom I did not know would approach me in a pub. and if it was a night when our pandilla
included men, one of the male friends (usually Enrique) would tell the man who was being aggressive >vith me that I was his girlfriend from Canada (vvhich I was not). that I did not
understand the Castilian language (which I did). and to lea\·e me alone (which I was grateful for) .
I wondered how the young men whom I knew had formed the opinion that .. nice
185 girls were hard to find'". It was well known among members of the pandilla that, for
example. Enrique cheated on his long term girlfriend but I had never heard of a \I./Oman cheating on a man. Although it probably occurs. the openness with which men talked about their experiences with \Vomen had provided me with some context to understand why female informants often commented to me. in turn. that it \Vas very difficult to find
··un buen chico··. When referring to male partners. women of all ages would comment that
.. las primeras veces nunca se sabe que va a salir (the first few times. \Vho knows what will come about)"". Women of all ages also made frequent comments about how there \Vere only a handful. at best. of ..chi cos buenos'· in Lugo. However. in one conversation that I had with Carmen and Pedro (the male veterinarian). he suggested to me that while women may complain that men are macho, egoista and materialistic. these women nevertheless often settled in their mid twenties. or early thirties in long term relationships for fear that they \Vould be alone and never man-y, as his ovm girlfriend had done. Carmen later told me that it was well known that Pedro cheated on his girlfriend of fifteen years. Pedro himself presented us w'ith examples of his women friends and of his own sister to support his claim that women ··put up with our behaviour which is why \Ve don "t change··. Carmen adamantly argued against this, stating that she herself would not put up with macho and egoista men. as she had not with her ex-boyfriend. Over the course of the summer.
Carmen and other young women talked about ho\V they would not remain with men w·hom they felt displayed excessive characteristics such as being overly macho or egoista. They
186 also recognised that nor did they want to remain so/teras (single) for the rest of their lives.
The perpetual presentation of \vomen by w·omen as complicadas (women are complicated) seemed to fuel their talks about how difficult it \Vas to find an understanding man. Yet. I
\VOndered if. as Pedro and other men had told me. young women \vould accommodate to perceived negative male behaviour once they got older, out of fear of being alone.
Although women periodically complained that there \Vere not many chicos huenos in the city of Lugo. women \Vere not exempt from criticism. People in general frequently criticised young women for acting like men by displaying negative characteristics associated \Vith masculine behaviour.
Social Evaluations ofYoune Female Behaviour
In a conversation with Carmen and Roberto (introduced in the previous chapter) one afternoon in late July. they explained to me that more men than women are egoi.sta but that adolescent females. especially 15 and 16 year olds. are increasingly becoming this way. They told me that their generation (Generation ·75) has more in common with their parents· generation as opposed to the members of younger age cohorts. even though women among their cohort are also adopting behaviours widely perceived as negative.
They· said that women are increasingly becoming more .. superficial'" because of the .. lucha
(fight)'' for highest grades in school. for wage employment and fo1 money. all of which lead to their acting egoista at times. With reference to young 15 and 16 year old adolescent females. Carmen argued that they are worse than the women in her age cohort and that this
187 partially resulted from a Jack of discipline in the home and in schools, ""No hay tanra disciplina (There is not as much discipline)".
When I asked Carmen and Roberto how they thought that changing female behaviour would affect relationships between men and \VOmen. our conversation turned to the topic of divorce. They disagreed with people's tendency in Spain, in previous decades. to hold women solely accountable for their divorces. When divorce was once again legalised in Spain in 1981. they argued that women and not men were criticised for marital rupture because. Roberto explained --una mujer tiene mcls compromisos (a \VOman has more obligations)"". Spain is "tradicional (traditional) in its ideas"'. Carmen added.
Carmen and Roberto \Vere not alone in their interpretations of young women becoming more like men. Indeed. informants of all ages told me that women were changing for 'the \Vorse' . How do I interpret Carmen's and Roberto's argument that they have more in common with members of their parents' generation. who grew· up in different political and socioeconomic conditions. than \vith those in the generations younger than themselves? HO\v do I interpret Carmen's and Roberto's criticism of
\Vomen's increasing adoption of perceived negative characteristics as being linked to competition. a part of the wider capitalist market economy? And how do I interpret their sympathy for the members of older female age cohorts, whom, they argued, were blamed for marriages that did not work out because "Spain is tradicional?"
In the discussion that follows. I address these questions as they relate to the theme
188 of negative social evaluations of female life choices and behaviours.
Female NeQative Evaluation ofYounQ Female Behaviour
One night while out with Carmen and her female friends. at one of the pubs. we
joined a group of young men \vhom \Ve knew. These men were accompanied by a couple
of w·omen \\·hom \Ve did not know. After ordering some drinks. we danced in a large
circle. One of the women in the men ·s pandilla "'·as visibly drunk, falling on the ground
and spilling beer all over herself. drinking \Vhile she danced. The women whom I was \vith
openly criticised her and expressed their disgust and embarrassment for the other \voman' s
behaviour. [tried helping the young ~;voman up offthe dance floor a couple of times but
was reprimanded both times by the other women \vho shook their heads and rolled their
eyes at the young drunk woman. Although [\Vas familiar vvith men·s public displays of
drunkenness. this was the first and only occasion during which [ ~;vitnessed a woman· s
public display of dn.mkenness. The men ~;vho were friends with this woman joked and
laughed at her incoherence. Based on Carmen·s and her friends· disapproval of the
woman· s drunkenness. I understood why it had not been common for me to see young
~;vomen drunk in the city of Lugo.
On a separate occasion, while another woman in her mid twenties and I were walking in downtown Lugo. we talked about what she interpreted as the increasing moral decline of women. As we were making our way around a busy street corner. she pointed to a young girl or woman walking in front of me who was wearing tight fitting white j eans
189 and a tank top. '·Look, look at her'·. she exclaimed while pointing to her. "How old do you think she is?'" Based on her appearance and the group of other young \Vomen w·ith whom she was talking. [ figured that the individual in question could be in her late teens or early twenties. My friend laughed at my estimation and was quick to tell me that she was 13 years old. She pulled me closer to the young woman and introduced us. My friend apparently knev.; this younger woman through the \VOman·s tutor. .. You see. Amanda··. she commented as we strolled by the group, ·'I told you that young women grow up physically quickly but are now only interested in boys and in sex. When I \Vas that age, I only thought about my homework·'. Not only did women criticise other \vomen for their perceived negative behaviours, men also frequently negatively evaluated \vomen.
Male Negative Evaluation of Female Behaviour
One night \vhile out \vith young women and men at a popular pub \vhich university students frequented. one man in his mid twenties talked about his viev.. · s of female behaviour: ··Look around at those girls (chicas)"·. he said. ··They're dura (hard)"". ··what do you meanT. I asked him. ··Look.. . he said standing squarely in front of me and \Vith exaggerated hand movements added .. They·re like in your face. They"re not behaving in a nice. gentle way (linda). They're just like in yo ur face. out there··.
On another night out with Antonia ·s pandilla, one of the men that joined our group became very critical of other \Vomen·s behaviour in the pub. While a popular Latin
American fast song was playing, some of the men on the dance floor took off their shirts
190 while dancing with women. In tum. these women took off their shirts, swinging them around as did the men. Immediately. one of the men \vhom we were with became tense and turned his back on the handful of half dressed dancers. He criticised the women for being ··so easily persuaded" into "vhat he interpreted as being immoral ··inmorar feminine behaviour. He did. however. also criticise the men for their participation in the dance but in a more mild fashion.
On the second day of my fieldwork, I met two women from Ireland \Vho were in
Lugo on a university exchange programme. Because I w·anted to get to know students from
Galicia. I decided to decline their offer to eat lunch with them downtown in the city of
Lugo and opted to eat with the other university students in the residence· s comedor (dining room). After a few weeks. I realised that not pursuing a friendship with the \vomen from
Ireland \vas a good decision. Throughout my stay in residence. Galician students often commented to me that these women were .. pwas (whores or sluts). all they ever do is party". On several occasions. \vhile some of the university students and I ate breakfast in one of the residence' s caferertas. we \Vould see these women come in from a night out. It
\Vas also well-known that one of the women from Ireland got together to ligar with a young man in residence when his girlfriend went home on the week-ends. I also heard other young people refer to some Galician \vomen as putas.
Carmen, her female and male friends, and I were at a pub one night. Gathered around a pitcher of beer. the men joked about their sexual activities with other young
191 women. They recounted to us how one of the young men had not talked with one woman
\Vith whom he had had sexual intercourse ...What was her name?". one of the man·s male friends asked him. ··He doesn't know. Hov,,. should he know?". another asked \vhile patting him on the back. ··There was no need to talk to her'·. "·What apwa!", one ofhis male friends exclaimed. I was surprised at their directness and looking around at the \Vomen. I noticed that they sat quietly around the table. Listening to these young men talk about other women· s behaviours, I understood \vhy the women vvhom I \Vent out \Vith to the calle de vinos told me that \Vhen they got together w·ith a man to ligar, that this did not mean that they had sex with the man. The men who sat around the table with us talked about some women as being ""easy··. The men·s criticisms of women \vho \.vould have sex with men without necessarily knowing them welL w·ere overtly misogynous and served to silence the women.
One can see through the above examples that criticisms of female behaviour. based on notions of gender difference. is a powerful mechanism used to attempt to restrict
\vomen from activities permitted to men, while these also affect their relationships '.vith men. Why. for example. did the women whom I kne·w not criticise men's public displays of drunkenness as they had done with the woman whom I saw drunk"? Why did women not contest men' s criticisms of women, that is, why did they not openly resist? \Vhy did our male friend criticise the women \vho took offtheir shirts in the pub while he only seemed disappointed \Vith the men·s similar activity? And what does it mean that young women
192 are labeled pula \vhile men are not labeled for the same behaviour?
PO\ver betw·een Women and Men
As anthropologist Susan Carol Rogers examined 25 years ago. ··power relationship between the categories ·male· and ·female' is maintained in peasant society [in France] by the acting out of a ·myth· of male dominance .. (Rogers 1975: 729). Although Rogers was referring to peasant society in France in her analysis of men and women· s power relationships, it is useful for my present purposes because she considers that •·neither men nor women belie\·e that the ·myth" is an accurate reflection of the actual situation·· (Ibid.)
The young university men \Vhom I knew who spoke about their sexual activities. characterising other \VOmen as plllas in the presence of young university women and myself. were successful in silencing and demeaning us as none of us \vould reply.
Ho\vever, it is also true that these young \vomen and I talked amongst ourselves and with
9 older women about what we perceived to be negative male behaviours • Furthermore. sometimes with individual men and \Vhen talking \Vith female friends, women were engaging in the discussions and they would oftentimes criticise men, as Carmen had done when talking to Pedro (see. for example. page 158). In other \Vords. although men talked openly about \Vomen in the presence of \VOmen. taking advantage of contexts. such as late night occasions at pubs. this does not necessarily mean that this ret1ects a wider situation
9 Also see. for example. the special edition in Anthropolo£ica ( 1999). In each of their articles. de la Gala Gonzalez: Kelley: Parkhurst; Rogers: and Roseman explore issues of gender and power in rural Northwestern Iberia.
193 in which men have more po\ver in their relationships with \VOmen and overall accessibility to socialising activities as opposed to women. Women told me that they \'vould not cater to men whom they perceived to be overly macho and egois1a10 even \vhen some men argued that. in general. men were not changing their perceived negative behaviours because women put up with them. Active talk and criticisms on the part of both genders suggests that the young university people in Generation ·75 whom I knew seemed be in a power struggle.
In the context of the city of Lugo. I interpret the negative social evaluations of voung \VOmen · s beha\·iour and criticism about voung women ·s femininitY as being also , - .. - " -
11 linked to the high unemployment rate among women, particularly yo ung women • Both are means to control women's access to resources and therefore restricting, to some extent. their spatial and socioeconomic mobility.
In her study in Ourense. Gulevich (1995) argues that upon marriage. women· s physical mobility became more restricted. ··married women are not expected to spend much time or money socializing'" (Ibid. 133). In contrast, in Lugo I noticed that for married \vomen it was commonplace to continue to pursue leisure activities outside of the
10 This talk between women in an urban context does appear to be ne\V. compared to the past. Although women may have felt threatened when out at night. there is room for their O\Vn analyses and young women's mothers' reference to their wanting them to remain economically independent from future husbands may also be reflective of this change.
11 Men compete with women for wage employment and therefore men have a vested interest in helping to create and sustain spatial and socioeconomic restrictions.
194 casa. Indeed. on occasion, Carmen went out with older women in their mid to late thirties.
One night while I \vas out \Vith them. I \Vas able to take note of the similar pattern described above. of bar and pub hopping. The difference lay in the location of the bars and pubs. We went to establishments outside of Ia mural/a romana. However. as with younger informants. \Ve ended our night out in the early morning. Although the older married women did not seem to go out as often as younger informants. they did socialize at night.
The dynamics of the group \Vere also different. For example, one woman was accompanied by her husband and the group "vas smaller. consisting of five people.
Overall. hovv·ever. the atmosphere was similar. Women looked after one another and seemed to have fun.
Mothers whom I knew \Vith younger children did not partake as much in this form of socializing. nor did they stay· in the ca.sa. [t \Vas common. for example. to see many couples with young children strolling inside Ia mural/a romana, dressed stylishly. hand in hand, pushing their baby strollers shortly after Ia hora de comic/a (the time of day when people eat their main meal). usually after 4 p.m. in the afternoon. In addition. Gulevich remarks that married women in the city are not supposed to spend as much time on their physical appearance (I 995). In contrast. many of the women vvhom I knew. albeit middle class vvomen, were well-dressed, and had a sense of fashion style, displayed by \.v·earing name brand clothing. highlighting their hair. wearing makeup and matching apparel.
Young university women whom I knew also demonstrated concern \Vith their
195 out\vard physical appearance as my earlier description of the preparation process for a
night out suggests. Beyond getting ready for a night in bars and pubs. however. women. in
general \vere concerned \Vith their body image. a point which I pursue below.
The Social Construction and Evaluations of the Ideal Female Bodv
Sitting on the bus. traveling from Santiago de Compostela to Lugo on my first day
in Galicia. I noticed women dressed in black clothing out in the fields that lie parallel to
the highway. The women looked physically strong and appeared to be huskier than the
men who worked along-side them. Based on the reading that [ had done prior to my
leaving for Galicia, the scene which [encountered was exactly what [had anticipated of
rural Galicia. On our descent into the city of Lugo. however, the contrast between rural
and urban landscape. and \vay of life. became remarkable. Cars were bustling about on
narrow streets which divided the high towering apartment buildings. and at the bus station
where it had been arranged that I would meet \\·ith de Ia Gala. I was overwhelmed by the
·metropolitan· atmosphere. I was surrounded by welt-dressed, well-groomed men and
women \Vho spoke rapidly and loudly in both Castilian and Gallego. I became very disoriented when de Ia Gala and I went to a supermarket where I purchased some food for my room in the university residence. The quantity of yogurt items that lined the length of an aisle and the variety of juices, snack items. fruit, even beauty items was overwhelming.
Within a half an hour driving distance. I had gone from the scene of \vomen and men vvorking in agriculture to a bustling urban centre.
196 I became accustomed to the animated ways in "vhich inhabitants of the city of Lugo speak and tell stories. I became accustomed to the social etiquette with \vhich one greets the attendant in a store. whether it is a grocery store. a bakery or a coffee shop. I became accustomed to the intensity with \Vhich informants spoke ~' ith me and others. ahvays making direct eye contact. I did. ho\vever. have a difficult time with the gossip about people and social evaluations of others; that is. with the wide-spread public opinions that circulated in Lugo about people's personal strengths and weaknesses in the context of their performative abilities in school. in the \vage market economy. and in romantic relationships. At times. I felt as though we were all in a fish bowl under intense. peering eyes. The timing of my research. during the wide-spread exam competitions may have accounted for much of the way that I \vas feeling. Ho\vever on a personal level. others· evaluation of my femininity was a constant personal challenge. For example. many female informants often commented to me that I was egoisw for having left my boyfriend in
Canada to pursue this research. However. I did become accustomed to Carmen·s. and
Fatima's. teasing of my sense (or lack thereat) of fashion style. My choice of undergam1ents. for example. \vas the brunt of much teasing and as 'Ne would hang our underwear on the clothes line to dry. Carmen and Fatima \Vould comment on how they pitied my boyfriend for having to put up with such ugliness, taking a pair off the line and outlining its shape and pulling at the cotton material. \Vhen I came back from a week-end in Santiago \Vith my supervisor. a wrapped gift of a matching bra and underwear set lay on
197 my bed \Vith a little note which read that they \Vere for my poor boyfriend in Canada that he might see what women '·really.. wore under their clothes. All jokes and fun aside. hO\.vever. I did struggle with these external evaluations about my body.
Because I did not have the ·right" clothing to go out. I decided at one point to go shopping and buy a pair of pants so that I would not rely on Fatima·s and Carmen·s generous lending of their clothing all summer. Carmen brought me to one clothing shop
\vhere she and Fatima often purchased their clothes. Carmen had informed me that the clothes were inexpensiYe but nice and stylish. Indeed. there \vas an abundant selection and the clothes were not very expensive. Carmen suggested that I try a matching green pant and shirt ensemble. After my third attempt to fit into t'\VO different models of pants. one of the young women who worked in the store simply looked at me. In the same manner with which others had told me of my perceived selfishness. the woman said that the pants did not fit me because. as she pointed to her own hips and legs. I \Vas fat. And as I agreed that
I \Vas not going to get into any of the pants in this store because of my fat hips and legs.
Carmen. in politeness. shook her head and tried to lessen the blow of the woman·s words.
I bought a tank top and we left the store never to go back throughout the remainder of my tieldwork.
From the first few days of field\vork living in Lugo. I could not help but notice the overwhelming number of very petite and slender women. Walking downtown with
Antonia and Carmen one afternoon. they commented to me--while we walked behind t\vo
198 thin vounf! women-- that manv voune \vomen had eatinf! disorders because of their .. - "' ., - - obsession to be thin. They told me that women wanted to look like the fashion models and the female models in fashion magazines. Carmen continued that the obsession was not healthy and that a voluptuous. curvy woman \vas not as in vogue. Indeed. the regional newspapers regularly featured articles on the increasing number of girls and women in
Spain with anorexia and bulimia. And although Antonia. Carmen and I talked about how· devastatinf! and sad the situation was. talk about the female bodv and dietine was a ~ . , - recurrent theme throughout fieldwork. On one occasion. for example. during Carmen· s and my visit to our landlady. \ve talked about dieting with her and her older female friend.
Our landlady was in her late fifties or early sixties and I guessed that her friend was probably a little older. Both women talked about their current dieting regimes and how much \veight they had successfully lost. Carmen and I sat there listening. occasionally joining in. but being told repeatedly that we had nothing to \vorry about just yet because we still had our youthful figures. With this. our landlady went into her kitchen and brought out lavish pastries which we initially declined but which \Ve eventually ate. We talked about the number of glasses of water we should drink tilloughout a day and ho\v a daily
\Valk helped to invigorate lazy bones.
Sofia. Carmen· s mother. also often talked about her \Veight. her daughters· \Veight as \veil as my own. On my second visit to her casa she commented to me on how my skin looked better and how [ was gaining weight in and around my culo (backside around my
199 hips and legs). Indeed. although Carmen and I often commented on how sad it \Vas that we women were ''starving·· ourselves. she nonetheless asked me to monitor her intake of chocolate and requested that I physically hit her should I see her with chocolate in her mouth. I. on the other hand. adopted another extreme tactic and took up the rigorous activity of jogging. being periodically joined by Carmen and other young women. Of course. with my physical regimen. I gained muscular weight and to\vards the end of fieldwork had difficulty fitting into the pants that I had brought with me to Galicia. I was quite distraught by it all and regularly \VTOte e-mails to my mother and boyfriend expressing my dismay. At five foot and three inches and weighing one hundred and ten pounds. family and friends in Canada had little sympathy for my emotional distress. Yet female informants in Galicia shared my experiences. and the mental space that I was in caused me great anguish and I increasingly became insecure about my body.
In revisiting my personal field journal. I now interpret my obsession \Vith my body weight as having been caught up in other people· s evaluation of my body coupled with female informants· and my constant talk about our \veight and out\\'ard appearance.
Mamener su cuerpo or guardar Ia linea (maintaining one·s body or keeping one·s youthful figure) \vas important for the women whom I knew in Lugo and also seemed to be important for those whom I did not know, given the number of thin women and their fashion style. As for men, based on my observations. they too vvere self-conscious in their efforts to ·took good'. Indeed, many of the young men whom I kne\v talked about their
200 recent weight gain as a result of their lack of physical activity during the exam period.
Many people in residence. for example, consistently teased one young man about his
\Veight and about how he always went up to the food counter to ask for a second plate of food during meal time. HO\vever. one man whom I met \vho had recently broke up with his girlfriend of five years. expressed his turmoil over his ex-girlfriend's eating disorder. adding that he liked •·chicas con carne. \Vomen with meat [on their bones]"". He said that he eventually broke up with her because he no longer knew how to handle her anorexia and became scared that she would not cet better while he \Vas around. alwavs \Vanting to ~ - ~ look pretty and thin for him. he concluded.
Working towards Notions of Femininitv
While at a recent anthropological conference. I had the opportunity to present a portion of this chapter. After my presentation. audience members asked questions. many of w·hich focused on how young women in Lugo define femininity. I was. ho\vever. vague with my definition. I offered an assortment of examples of women displaying their femininity. Some audience members approached me after the session and continued to probe for a clear-cut detinition. Ho\\·ever. as historians Victoria Loree Enders and Pamela
Beth Radcliff( 1999) argue. to understand women·s identities in Spain .. requires a new historiographical grid, one that acknowledges the permeability of boundaries and categories. rather than reinscribes their rigidity.. (Loree Enders and Radcliff 1999: 5). As
Kelley also argues. ··women ... actively construct their individual identities in contexts of
201 shifting social constraints and fluctuating cultural expectations'· (Kelley 1999b: 197).
Similarly, [ understand notions of femininity among female members of Generation ·75 in the city of Lugo as being part of the socioeconomic context and as being situationally displayed.
Previous anthropological \VOrk done in rural Galicia and rural Portugal has highlighted notions of femininity \vhich include both \Vanting to .. look pretty.. and
1 women·s work and the community :. As Kelley states about \Vomen in the small costal village of Ezaro in rural Galicia: .. As the \Vomen of Ezaro actively contest their womanhood in their negotiation of \vork roles. they also define their community identity..
(Kelley l999b: 200).
The women whom I carne to kno\v in Lugo are university students \Vho go out with friends. and \vho often talk about the prospects of getting together with a young man
(/igar). An emphasis is placed on one·s outward appearances. Given the contexts of socialisation. and their point in the life cycle stage. it is clear \vhy importance is gi\·en to
.. looking good". On the one hand, women were very aware of their performances. and on the other hand. they were very mvare of others· interpretations of their actions. The question then becomes: looking good for whom? ~ ~
Notions of femininity reflect notions of gender difference. Moreover, young
12 See for example. Cole ( 1991 ): Kelley ( 1999b): and Roseman ( 1998) for their descriptions of femininity as being tied both to women ·s work and to out\vard physical appearances.
202 women· s notions of femininity are part of \Vhat others think femininity should or should
not be. People criticised \vomen for their behaviours and life choices by saying that they
were becoming more like men, therefore attacking their femininity. And although it was
argued that vounger women were becoming more like men. ironicallv. voung women - "' - - .. "' - strove towards meeting the ideal female body image which was distinctly feminine.
Carmen once told me that anorexia and bulimia were part of the overall pressures to
perform well on exams. and in the job market. That is. according to her. \vomen were
competing among themseh·es for the best bodies. the best grades in school. and in the
market economy. But \vhy let others influence or have pov.,·er over one's body image?
Based on my own experiences in Lugo. it became difficult to ignore the all
pervasiveness ofpeople·s talk about one another's performances and about body images. It
seems to me that at the core of young women·s self-identities in Generation ·75 is the
desire to strive to\vards ideals of being "'the perfect"' woman in order to lessen the social
criticism about their gender identities. As previously outlined. however. these ideals are
oftentimes contradictory. [nan environment with few employment opportunities. competition becomes fierce. Hovv·ever. \vomen are still expected to self-sacrifice for the
good of their families while simultaneous[\· increase their chances or obtaining stable ~ . ~ employment by studying and out-performing others on exams. thus thinking ofthemselves and their desired outcomes.
How the university women whom I met define their O\vn femininity is in dialectical
203 relation to public opinion (including mass media) of how a \VOman should look and act.
She should not over-identify herself with the pursuit of leisure activities in the calle as the
Irish young women had been perceived to have done. But women should maintain a
·good' sense of fashion style which necessitates the purchasing of personal commodities.
However. as Gulevich asserts: ·· ... women. and not men. can extract a limited. gender
specific prestige for adhering to the practices associated with purity. \Vhich center around
restriction of their sexuality. On the other hand. should they fail to do so. they are subject
to stigmas which would not apply to men" (Gulevich I 995: I 22).
One can see then. that as Loree Enders and Radcliff state ••the interaction bet\veen
powerful gender discourse of separate spheres and the more fluid reality of Spanish
women's lives as they struggled to define themselves within the hegemonic culture"
(Loree Enders and Radcliff 1999: 5) is the overall context in \Vhich women negotiate and
play out their gender identities \Vhich include notions of femininity and sexuality. The
ways of presenting self-images of femininity are. ho\vever. in continual process and these
must be considered in relation to the fertility question. It is both the mass media's
representation of femininity and social notions of w·hat femininity is--based on ideologies of gender difference--which affect women's self-images. In tum. these self-images are ~ ~ ~ reproduced in the mass media and ret1ect changing notions of gender difference.
The existence of much public opinion about femininity and what it means to be good at being a good woman are based on notions of gender difference. Criticisms of
204 female behaviours and life choices. such as women not having any or many children. are connected to gender relationships. However. as Gutmann ad~no\vledges in his discussion of changing gender roles in Mexico city. ··it is far from clear. in the case of gender relations for example. \Vhere things are truly headed·' (Gutmann 1997: 231-232). One thing is clear though: tensions arise for young women who must respond to public opinions about how a woman should be and should act. especially in the context of notions that women should at once be self-sacrificing. caring. nurturing. understanding. intelligent. independent. strong. and yet frail in tem1s of their body image.
Conclusions
Although during tieldv.:ork. [had internalised my friends· comments about how I was perceived as being egoist a and also criticisms of my body. I now understand these as being part of the larger pattern of strategic essentialism. People \vere making a step tmvards placing me in their cultural context using language most fan1iliar to them which is based on their notions of gender difference. Through an analysis of the socialising practice of .. going out"". one can see the interaction betv;een young people and the display of their sexuality which is part of their identities. The practice of ··getting together.. (to ligar \vith someone) is an overt form of romantic inestahilidad which is experienced differently according to one· s gender. The strategic use of essentialism. based on notions of gender difference. once again comes into play in young people's discussions about \vomen and men. Women run the risk of being characterised as putas if they are perceived as over-
205 participating and over-identifying in leisure and sexual activities. However. women also
criticise men. \Vho are subject to negative evaluations and are often talked about in
conversations between \VOmen as being overly macho or egoista. With changing gender
practices. one can see that there is a great deal of ambiguity in the social construction of
notions of gender difference.
There is also a complex pattern of change and continuity in people· s notions of
gender difference. Women·s socialising practices may have changed but they are
nevertheless subject to criticism should they be seen as over-identifying with leisure
activities pursued in the ccrlle. [n addition, women's goals are not always compatible such
as having to respond to the pressure between motherhood and wage employment
Similarly, \vomen strive towards the female body image portrayed in the mass media.
HO\vever. if women are perceived as overly identif}'ing themselves \Vith consumerism. this
could lead to them being viewed as materia/isla (materialistic) and egaisra. both of which
are interpreted as being ··traditional .. male characteristics but which are now also being
associated with female characteristics. In addition to being "good". self-sacriticing - - . - mothers. women should also be successful in school and in the wage market economy
\vhich requires that they compete vvith others. thinking of themselves and their desired
outcomes. Therefore, in considering reasons for the ·[ow' fertility rate in Lugo. one has to
take into account local level gender ideologies and gender practices because these are part of people· s interpretations of the fertility rate. Throughout this thesis. and particularly in
206 this chapter, I have mainly focused on the social characteristics of women's identities.
Their notions of sexuality and the ideal female body image both relate to others', and their own, perceptions of femininity.
207 Conclusions: Revisiting the Spanish --Fertilitv Puzzle··
·'Perhaps my data on familial. friendship. and romantic relationships reflect both my superYisor"s influence--one of Roseman's interests is the formation and reformation of work and family in rural Galicia--and my own conscious efforts to maintain close ties with geographically distant family members and friends?"'. I asked myself this question after re- reading the wealth of qualitative infom1ation which I collected on kinship and friendship emotional bonds. As a young Canadian woman. I consciously strive towards reaching a balance between spending time with family, friends. and graduate work obligations.
Although I currently reside in a different province from family members and many of my closest friends. emotional bonds remain strong through gift exchanges. frequent telephone calls to one another and email correspondence (also see di Leonardo on kin work 1987). I was therefore intrigued when informants in the city of Lugo linked youth maturity (Ia madurez de Ia juvenllld) to the reaching of a balance (un equilibria) . .. A person who is not selfish. is .. . [don "t know. .. is a nom1al person. a balanced person (una persona equilibrada)'", Sofia, a mother of two daughters in their twenties, told me. Sofia explained to me that a balanced person does not sacrifice her or his family for personal ambition.
Most informants said that a mature person is a stable person, a balanced person and many suggested that people in cities struggle more in reaching a balance betvveen family and personal ambition, whereas their rural neighbours are perceived as having an easier transition to adulthood and to reaching a balance. Although a great number of people
208 whom I got to knov.r well talked about maturity (madurez) and balance (equilibria). rarely did I hear talk on the ways in which urban dwellers reach and maintain el equilibria. While informants' social criticism of others' perceived over-identification and over-participation v.:ith \vork-related ambition and leisure activities was constant. just how a person divided her or his time between family. friends. and work was not problematised. Rather. it appeared to be taken for granted. Most people did not make reference to the process of balancing bet\veen these obligations. Instead, many inhabitants criticised young people. young women in particular. for their perceived selfishness (egafsma) and therefore lack of self-sacrifice (sacrificio). a social characteristic .. traditionally" linked to \Vomen's behaviour. Young \VOmen were explicitly blamed for their roles in Galicia·s and in Spain"s
·[ow· fertility rates. stating that women are behaving more like men by displaying ei egoismo. A number of young people"s socialising practices. and especially their courting practices, were understood as also being evidence of women's ·moral' decline and yet young university students were simultaneously expected to perfom1 certain acts of youthfulness. \vhich included an active social life. It is the tension bet\veen people ·s criticisms of young women and young women's experiences of people's criticisms, including their O\\·n. on which this thesis. especially the second half. is based.
Sofia·s impression of people \Vho sacrifice the well-being oftheir families for material goods raises an important question: how do families in urban settings balance bet\veen time spent bet\veen themselves and outside factors such as employment. societal
209 pressures to perform well on the nation wide competitive exams, and the importance placed on physical appearances? Although many inhabitants in Lugo placed emphasis on the time spent bet\veen mothers and children as \veil as mothers responsibility for their children· s psychological and emotional \Veil-being, spending time \vith family members and friends \Vas not talked about. unless I asked specific questions about this. Indeed. socializing practices between siblings. parents and their adult children, and friends was lived on a daily basis. That is. these relationships and the social obligations inherent in them \vere taken for granted \vhich suggests that socializing practices are. in some ways. institutionalized in Lugo.
A central facet of this thesis has been the teasing out of the ambiguous relationship between \Vhat people say and how people act. For example. although informants did not necessarily problematise their meeting of social obligations, when I would ask about their relationships \vith family members and \vith friends ~ oftentimes reference was made to their anguish and stress which many explained resulted from obligations to family and friends. In many ways relationships and the meeting of obligations sensitise and prepare young people for parenthood. That is, it is indeed the relationships with lo ved ones which socialise young people into parenthood and which perpetuate notions of parenting. A focus on urban familial and friendship emotional bonds points to the importance of social obligations and their relation to notions of child-rearing and parenting.
A concern of mine throughout has therefore been the teasing out of a number of
210 patterns. Anthropologist Michael HerLfeld's theoretical orientations espoused in his 1985 ethnography of male Cretan identity and further developed in his more recent book on the nation-state (1997) have been of key importance. Herzfeld" s notions of ··cultural intimacy", ··social poetics··. and ·•strategic essentialism"' form the crux on \Vhich most of the data presented in this thesis are analysed. It is based on Herzfeld's theoretical concepts and analytical approaches that I decided to divide my thesis into two main parts: Part I:
The Displav of Cultural Intimae\· and Part II : The Interolav between lnestabilidad and
Esrahilidad.
Along with other politicians and demographers. Galicia· s President has frequently made public statements to the effect that the low fertility rate constitutes a ··social crisis··.
Both the region ·s president and the president of the Galician Ministry of the Family present the demographic situation as being complicated and embedded with psychological and cultural factors.
At 1.07. the total fertility rate for Spain is currently one of the low·est in the world. a situation which has led to demographers calling it ··Spain's fertility puzzle". In their exploration of potential reasons for historical and current fertility levels in Spain. demographers have emphasized the importance of a long list of quantifiable variables. By· reducing ·variables' into categories and by analysing information within a quantitative frame\vork, demographers are. however. not always able to fully account for local experiences and changes in fertility patterns.
211 Based on participant-observation fieldwork conducted during the summer of 1999 in Luge. Galicia. and with a focus on inhabitants' everyday practices and discourses on gender. parenting. romance. sexuality. education. and work. I explored in this thesis local experiences ofSpain"s socioeconomic shifts as these relate to Spain's ·tow· fertility rate.
With a focus on the ..social poetics.. (Herzfeld 1985 and 1997) of everyday living. my goal has been to come to a better understanding of both the interplay between governmental and citizens· interests in fertility patterns and their explanations of why the fertility rate is
·tow·· .
Local notions of child-rearing and parenting are intimately connected to the
Spanish state and the Galician government"s discourses on the importance of reproducing a ·good· population and was the topic of Part I. Moreover, the unstable ·quality· of inhabitants· notions of gender difference and their connection to the ·tow' ferti lity rate contcxtualise public criticism of gender practices (a focus of Part II).
An interplay exists throughout the thesis between everyday practices. performances. and discourses which are situated in the historical-present and in the broader context of anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod's ·'politics of modernity"' ( 1998) which recognizes the interconnection between local notions of motherhood and political agendas.
A particular interest of mine in this thesis has been young university urban women ·s notions of motherhood and their link to family planning decision-making. For instance. current government concern over population numbers and informants· emphasis on the
212 remaking of children coupled with the simultaneous remaking of \vomen are interrelated.
An examination of the essentialistic language used in officials· and informants· descriptions of the 'low' fertility rate, compared with the more ·commonsense· nature of the loyalty and dedication to each other that family members and friends describe in conversations and also regularly display through their behaviour. point to a tension between everyday practices. performances, and discourses.
Although. for example. many women talked about motherhood. using essentialising language. as being a ·normative· femininity criteria. historical and present day incentives exist to promote parenthood. In addition. the frequency in which social evaluations of \vomen · s femininity occurs suggest that although female lives have changed from the Franco period ( 1939-1975). original criteria of femininity have been maintained along \Vith a new set of criteria which draw from the competitive skills and abilities needed in the post-Franco period. Following Herzfeld then. the act of strategic essentialism of gender and parenting is paradoxical in that there is a need for prevalent essentialism because notions of gender difference are in t1ux (i.e. unstable). Of course. this approach differs from previous work done (for example Peristiany 1965 and Pitt-Rivers
1965) in which the ··honour and shame·· moral code of conduct was used to explain gender difference in Iberian countries.
In this thesis. I have focused on describing the processes in which Generation '75 university women are displaying their ·ordinariness·. while experiencing tensions betv;een
2 13 seemingly contlicting self-identities in a post-Franco context I was interested in
describing the remaking of female identities within the context of socioeconomic changes
and sometimes overt expressions of male dominance. Even though individual men are
sometimes criticised for being egoista and macho, these social characteristics are
nevertheless talked about as being ·natural" to men. Moreover, male promiscuity was not
problematised and was not subject to open criticism. In contrast. women were talked about
negatively for similar behaviour and as a result, they risked being labelled putas (whores).
[explored how this remaking of women identities and subsequent reshaping of gender
relationships. relates to interpretations of gender difterence. notions of parenting, and
Spain·s ' low' fertility rate. [was therefore interested in how young women experience.
negotiate. and play out their self-identities in the context of notions of gender difference
and in the \Vider context of social change. I looked at how their everyday practices.
discourses, and presentations of self help to contextualize their interpretations of
femininity. motherhood. and ultimately. their views of Spain's ·JO\v· fertility rate.
Recent ethnographers interested in demography (for example, Brettell 1985, 1986,
1988, and 199 I ; Schneider and Schneider 1995 and 1996) and anthropologist Jane
Fishburne Collier's ( 1997) \Vork on the remaking of the 'family' in Andalusia highlight the
impact of broader economic and social transformations on inhabitants· fundamental constmctions of ·work', personal ·sacrifices', parenting and related notions of gender difference. People's invoking el egoismo as a main explanation for the 'low' fertility rate
214 in Galicia is part of the broader tension between meeting social obligations and thinking for oneself (from Collier 1997) and local gender ideologies. Indeed, I explored young women's experiences of this tension and I examined how their experiences relate to the fertility rate. My aim has been to contribute to previous anthropological work on demographic patterns, the body-politic, and to analyse the connections between local level discourses and institutional discourses. The overall goal of this thesis has been to add context to Spain's "fertility puzzle" and people's interpretations of it.
215 References Cited
Newspaper Articles {No Author Cited)
Chapter One: Introduction
"El 63 por ciento de las gallegas tiene su primer hijo entre los 25 y 34 afios de edad ... fi Correo Galle~w. June 19. 1999: 22.
'·La muralla y su funci6n religiosa.·· La Voz de Galicia. June 20, 1999: 40.
"El precio medio de los pisos en Lugo se situa en 152.000 pesetas." La Voz de Galicia. June 27, 1999: 43.
··Las ingenierfas y arquitectura tecnica son las titulaciones con mayor salida !aboral:· La Voz de Galicia. July 4. 1999: lO.
··Locos por el raton: Una docena de ciberlocales abrieron en pocos meses, aprovechando el ·boom' del sector." El ProQreso. July 5. 1999: 6.
··Galicia perdi6 en una decada Ia mitad de sus actives agrarios:· La Voz de Galicia. July· 15. 1999: 77 .
.. El numero de universitarios se ha duplicado en Ia comunidad durante la presente decada." La Voz de Galicia. July 18, 1999: 12.
--EI paro descendi6 en Galicia un punto mas que en toda Espana.,. La Voz de Galicia. August 4. 1999: I.
Chapter Two: Towards an Anal\1ical Approach to Spain' s --Fertilitv Puzzle··
--Fraga afirma que Ia baja natalidad amenaza ·coa extinci6n da nosa herdanza biol6xica·:· La Voz de Galicia. July 26. 1999: 7.
Chapter Three: Institutional Discourses on Fertilitv
--siete comunidades aut6nomas carecen de centres ptlblicos que practiquen abortos:· .fl_ Pais. April 6. 1998: 22.
216 .. Familias numerosas: pocas ayudas en escasos campos.'' La Voz de Galicia. May 16. 1999:1-3 .
.. Mas de 10.000 familias gallegas tienen reconocida Ia condicion de ·numerosas · :· La Voz de Galicia. June 1. 1999: 7.
··Galicia tiene cada afi.o 10.000 niii.os menos." La Voz de Galicia. June 7. 1999:3.
--Placer con riesgo: Las gallegas abortan mas que hace 10 afi.os y Ia mayo ria no usa anticonceptivos. La Xunta pretende facilitar el acceso a Ia ·pildora del dia siguiente· en atencion primaria y urgencias." El Pro2:reso. June 18. 1999: 72.
·'La pildora abortiva RU-486 llegani a Espana a finales de este afi.o."' La Voz de Galicia. July 8. 1999: 30.
·'Las feministas gallegas. hartas de que Ia Iglesia las considere ·menores de edad · :· La Voz de Galicia. July 15. 1999: 31.
'·Familia subvenciona solo menos de Ia mitad de las 258 guarderias gallegas" La Voz de Galicia July 18. 1999: 8-9 .
.. Lugo podria perder unos 50.000 habitantes en Ia proxima decada:· El Pro2:reso. July 20. 1999: 13 .
.. La evolucion demografica de Ourense y Lugo las situara en estado ·critico · en diez afi.os."' La Region. July 20. 1999: 30.
·'Noventa municipios gallegos perdenin Ia mitad de Ia poblacion de aqui al afi.o 2010." La Voz de Galicia. July 20. 1999: 12.
--una familia espanola con 30 hijos igualaria Ia ayuda fiscal de una belga con uno:· fl Correa Galle2:o: 20.
·'Lopez Besteiro invita a tener hijos porque son ·inversion de futuro.''' La Voz de Galicia. July 27. 1999: 7.
--Fraga an uncia nuevas medidas para mejorar Ia tasa de natalidad."" La Voz de Galicia. July 29. 1999: 9.
217 ··Solo el 70% de los chicos y el 59% de las chicas usan condones:· La Voz de Galicia. July 29. 1999: 29.
··cae Ia natalidad en Galicia un 53% desde 1980. y aumenta 17 puntas Ia mortalidad."" La Voz de Galicia. August I. 1999: 8.
··La crisis demognifica se agrava en la franja oriental y el interior de Ia costera: Solo un municipio de Ia provincia coruiiesa sigue renovando su poblacion.·· El Correo Galleeo. August l , 1999.
··Gallegos en vias de extincion:· La Voz de Galicia. August 8. 1999: 1-4.
··Un 30% de los gallegos tendni mas de 60 afios en el 2025." La Voz de Galicia. August 12, 1999: 1 I.
··As amas de casa de Galicia podenin ter unha pension por 5.000 pesetas o mes:· R Correa Galleeo. June 2 I. 2000.
http:/ /w\n\· .elcorreogallego .es/periodico/20000621 /Galicia/N22 9 8 .asp
Chapter Six: Generation ·75 Experiences of Economic !nestabilidad
··Qferta en las carreras con limite de plazas para el curso 1999-2000." La Voz de Galicia. June8.1999: 12.
··La Hora de Ia verdad: Diez mil personas se examinaran en Lugo de las oposiciones del Sergas:· El Proereso. June 13. 1999: 31.
... Nay estoy nerviosa. estoy histerica·: Casi 1.5000 alumnos lucenses de COU viven con nerviosismo los dias previos a Ia selectividad. AI margen de superar las pruebas. los estudiantes estan agobiados por lograr Ia nota que precisan para entrar en Ia cmTera deseada:· E I Proereso. June 13 , 1999: 12-13 .
.. Mas de 13 .000 alumnos gallegos se juegan en Ia selectividad su futuro universitario:· La Voz de Galicia. June I 7. 1999: 12 .
.. Las pruebas del Sergas reunieron a cinco mil opositores de Ia provincia .Y Santiago:· La Voz de Galicia. June 17. 1999: 44.
218 "La hora de verdad: Pocos nervios en la segunda jornada de las pruebas de la selectividad, que concluyen hoy." El Progreso. June 18, 1999: 12.
"(,Opositas o trabajas?" La Voz de Galicia. June 27, 1999: 1-4.
"Un 84% de los alumnos gallegos pasaron la selectividad." La Voz de Galicia. July 2, 1999:1 and 45-52.
"Lugo super6 al resto de Galicia en la selectividad." El Progreso. July 2, 1999: 1 and 39-54.
"Galicia conta con preto de 46.000 universitarios mais que en 1986." El Progreso. July 18, 1999:47.
"El numero de universitarios se ha duplicado en la comunidad durante la presente decada." La Voz de Galicia. July 18, 1999: 12.
"Mas de 15.000 opositores se juegan 1.300 plazas en el Sergas." La Voz de Galicia. July 28, 1999: 1 and 14.
"A la segunda prueba del Sergas acudieron entre el 96 y el 100% de opositores." ill_ Progreso. July 28, 1999: 6.
"Las tasas de oposiciones al Sergas son de las mas elevadas de Espana." La Voz de Galicia. August 3, 1999: 4.
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